


Elephant Gun

by cielelyse



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Music, Angst, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, i just really wanted to see these adorable jerks fall in love like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:35:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 48,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25789699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cielelyse/pseuds/cielelyse
Summary: Atsumu is a famous singer. Sakusa is a bodyguard. They first meet when Kita, concerned about the number of death threats Atsumu has been receiving, hires Sakusa for him.Naturally, it's hate at first sight.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 835
Kudos: 4110
Collections: Favorites, Haikyuu!! Fics, Haikyuu14, Inarizaki Serotonin Rush, SakuAtsu Fics, mm yæs, ~SakuAtsu~





	1. Atsumu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much, in advance, for reading! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, and I always welcome any kind of feedback. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS ALL CAME FROM TWO LOVEABLE IDIOTS WITH 13 PANELS, _WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO US SAKUATSU_. Aaaa but also please forgive me if I've portrayed anything incorrectly. I hope you’ll enjoy :)
> 
> Translation into Spanish/Español available [here,](https://my.w.tt/zAwsOv7gmbb) by [Nikki_l03](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikki_l03/pseuds/Nikki_l03). Thank you so much for your hard work!

Atsumu wakes to the sound of glass breaking.

He jolts up from his bed, alarmed, and sees the remnants of his window scattered onto the floor in shards. A large rock rolls in the middle of the pool of fragments, twice, thrice, and then stops.

Atsumu rushes over to the window and peers down, seeing nothing but the rear end of a car driving away and hearing nothing but the sound of neighbourhood children laughing. He turns back, picks up the rock, and notices that there is a thin, white piece of paper wrapped around it.

 _DIE,_ it reads, _YOU PIECE OF SHIT._

“Well, this is terrifyin',” he says, monotone, and then saunters to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

.

_“…Thank you for tuning in to Tokyo Reporter! Next on the entertainment news today is Miya Atsumu! Let’s talk about this hell-raising man now, shall we? The 24-year-old singer, infamous for both his music and his foul mouth, has recently taken to accuse the beloved Kageyama Tobio of being a ‘goody-two-shoes’ of the industry because he is ‘not singing and playing the best that he can’. Can you_ believe _that? All of Kageyama’s fans are of course lashing out at him! Without his twin brother by his side, Miya Atsumu is gradually losing followers. But I guess he doesn’t seem to be fazed by it, eh? And this is also after Atsumu offended two other artists…”_

.

“You,” says Kita, pointing a calm finger at him, “are out of control, as is this situation, so I hired a bodyguard for you.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Atsumu protests.

Kita just stares him down, fork in hand dipping into a corner of his gyoza. Atsumu knows with certainty, predictable as all of Kita’s routines are, what comes next.

“You’ve been pissin' off every other singer and producer that you’ve come across,” Kita begins to list, “you answer rude comments on social media with even ruder replies, you curse at fans who express their adoration towards you, and you hold nothing back when it comes to bashing on rising artists.”

“I’m just bein’ honest about what I think of their music,” Atsumu says hotly.

“There’s honesty and there’s tact,” Kita says, “and you're not drawin' the line.”

“And those girls keep _squealing._ Like pigs! What was I supposed to do?”

“Maybe _n_ _ot_ call them squealing pigs to their faces?”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Atsumu repeats. “’Samu, help me out here.”

“I’m hungry,” Osamu, being Osamu, says. “Where is my food.”

Atsumu turns to glare at his twin, irked that there is a colossal difference in the magnitudes of their problems at the moment. _Fuck you for not stayin' and singin' with me,_ he wants to yell _._ Apparently opening an onigiri shop is a passion that burns brighter, to Atsumu’s confoundment.

Osamu holds his chin in his hands and sighs.

It’s a fine Sunday in a deserted quarter of Tokyo, the morning light pooling around them on the restaurant terrace. Atsumu sees through the coral tint of his sunglasses the way it dyes Kita’s hair a slight gold, the way it lifts the vibrant colours in all the flowers and wood and fabric on each rare passerby. A bird chirps.

“Who is this unfortunate man ya hired?” Osamu asks.

Atsumu kicks him in the leg. Osamu punches back.

“He’s an acquaintance I met through Ojiro,” Kita says, eyeing them steadily until they settle down. “His name’s Sakusa Kiyoomi. You’ve been gettin' too much hate, Atsumu, to the point of death threats. _Death threats_. I’m afraid it’ll escalate to physical violence. You already have a small security team, but I had to get you a 24/7 bodyguard to be safe.”

It’s true that ever since the first threat—the one that crashes through his window early in the morning a couple weeks ago—he has been finding white pieces of paper with words sprawled on them in a similar vein. They all are in the same handwriting, with the same message that boils down to the simple, fervent belief that Atsumu should die. _You’d think they’d cyber-bully me,_ Atsumu had said to Kita after showing him the fourth one. _What’re these old-fashioned threats?_ _Makes me think it’s probably a witherin’ old man tryin’ to end my life._

Kita had squinted at him and said, _Not funny._

“No need for personal protection,” Atsumu says. “I can always fight ‘em off myself.”

“With what, your fragile ego?” Osamu scoffs, earning him another kick in the shin.

“I ain’t scared,” Atsumu says.

“No debate, please,” Kita says, back straightening. “As your manager and your friend, I’m worried about you. I don’t want to see you injured, or assaulted, or kidnapped with only a note that says _For The Greater Good_ and offered to the gods.”

“That’s weird and specific,” says Atsumu. “Did _you_ think of that?”

“In any case,” Kita says, ignoring him, “no debate.”

Atsumu slouches back against the chair, his mood turning sour. Kita has a point. Kita _always_ has a point, cold logic and emotionless expression aside. Atsumu likes his bluntness, his directness, and masochistically somehow likes his frightening ability to read Atsumu’s mind. Kita’s a little weird like that. And a little awful.

But Kita is also kind, infinitely so, and Atsumu will be damned if he’s going to do anything that will add to the stress in Kita’s life.

“Fine,” Atsumu grunts. _But I will make this bodyguard’s life a livin’ hell,_ he refrains himself from adding. Although that sentiment will be a worry of later, because right now the waitress is making her way towards them, and the sight of her is clawing out a rumble in his stomach that he wasn’t before aware was there.

“Here’s your onigiri,” says the waitress, setting down the tray.

“Oh, happiness,” says Osamu.

.

Atsumu doesn’t care that people hate him.

Why should he? Cheers or jeers, acclamation or condemnation, none of it matters as long as he can keep the music alive, as long as he can pull people in and drown them out with song. As long as there are those out there that will listen to him. He doesn’t live for the affection of strangers. Why should he seek the public’s approval of his personality as if it’s the deciding factor in him being able to do what he loves, in him being honest? It would be downright _dumb_ , in his opinion, and a little hypocritical.

 _Stupid Kita-san and his stupid worries,_ he thinks, not really meaning it, as he scribbles out a major note on his sheet and replacing it with a minor one.

 _No debate,_ Kita had said, and is of course true to his words. Apparently he has already contacted this Sakusa Kiyoomi person well before mentioning it to Atsumu and has arranged for him to start on Monday—which is today, twenty-two hours after their breakfast together on the terrace.

So now Atsumu sits at the piano in the music room at home—his favourite room—waiting for Kita to show up and introduce him to the man. The slow ticking of the clock is filling him up with irritation, with gall, with dread so full that he’s bleeding it all out onto the pages before him—pages tucked neatly on the music rack, the sunlight streaming from the window behind him bathing them in the soft glow of near autumn.

It’s not that he hates the notion of someone protecting him; that, he only sort of dislikes. But what he _especially_ despises is the idea that someone will follow his every step and leave him no room to breathe. It’s going to be suffocating and smothering and he will probably end up wanting to throw either himself or Sakusa Kiyoomi out the window.

 _Stupid bodyguard,_ Atsumu thinks, meaning it. _Stupid, stupid bodyguard_.

He looks up at the clock. 8:55 a.m.

 _Five more minutes,_ he thinks. Kita’s discipline and punctuality is an impressive, mystifying thing, but at least it never gives Atsumu any surprises. Three more minutes, and Kita will unlock the front door with his own spare key, ushering the newly hired bodyguard in. Four more minutes, and they will both make their way up the staircases as Kita briefly gives the man a quick outline of the house. Five more minutes, and they will arrive at the second floor, at the door that is open ajar wherein Atsumu sits with his piano.

So in the meantime, Atsumu plays.

He loves music. Always has, from first breath. He was five and his father had given them piano lessons. He was eight and violin had become the second instrument, the second extension. He was eleven and there came the guitar, different and clipped but reverberating all the same. And throughout all the years, it was his mother who sang with him in between the seemingly mundane everyday moments, and Osamu who continued the songs by his side.

The two of them were discovered by Kita when they were seventeen. They became the Miya twins – a duo renowned for their vocals and harmony – and rose to fame within a year. It’s a staggering amount of jargon, being in the music industry, with all the negotiations and contracts and fees, all the publicity and promotion, all the difficult record producers who try to change their songs to be more “mainstream”, those _idiots_. But even when Kita is worn and Osamu discouraged, Atsumu thrives in the exhilaration of being able to play one more song, one more chord, one more note, for they are his and he would do with them what he could.

 _This ain’t a stable career,_ Osamu once told him.

 _I’m not in it for stability,_ he had said. _I can die at any moment, and if I can die doin’ this, I’ll die happy. Can ya say the same?_

That’s why, when Osamu decided to quit music and pursue the food-related business he so loved, Atsumu continued playing, continued singing. Because he lives for moments like this one, right now, when his fingers dance over the black and white keys, every point of pressure combining to pour a melody of a million colours into the air, clear and entrancing. Atsumu buries himself in the sound. _I’m alive,_ he thinks, knows, feels it deep in the marrow of his bones. _I’m alive. I’m alive._

He doesn’t know how much time has passed until he hears a throat clear.

The music stops abruptly. Atsumu glances up and sees Kita standing in the doorway, a small pleasant smile on his face, and beside him is—

 _Uh,_ Atsumu thinks, frowning, _what?_

The man is tall. Much taller than Kita, and most definitely taller than Atsumu. A three-piece suit fits neatly around him, wrinkles and dust minimal. His hair is wavy and black and falls almost over his eyes, and _are those_ _two moles on his forehead?_ But regardless, the two things that immediately catch Atsumu off guard are the white mask pulled over his face and the black gloves tight around his hands.

“Atsumu,” Kita says. “This is Sakusa Kiyoomi.”

“Hello,” Sakusa says. His voice is deep, muffled by fabric, and his eyes are boring into Atsumu, dark and intense and inscrutable.

Atsumu feels a flame of attraction and immediately stomps on it.

“What’s with the mask and gloves?” he asks crudely as he stands and closes the distance between them, pointedly ignoring the way Kita frowns in disapproval. “Is the flu season comin' early this year?”

“I’m a germaphobe,” Sakusa says.

Atsumu raises an eyebrow. “Questionable occupation for that, then.”

“ _Atsumu_ ,” Kita says, his tone warning. Atsumu pouts at him, the regret nearly surfacing but not quite there.

“That’s fine,” Sakusa says, staring fixedly at Atsumu. “I’m not the only one here with the questionable occupation.”

Kita blinks.

Atsumu blinks.

Sakusa doesn’t.

“ _WHAT?!_ ” Atsumu all but shouts, the shock from the insult catapulting itself into white-hot rage. “Ex _cuse_ me—you—how dare—are you sayin’ I shouldn’t be—?! Kita-san, _fire him_!”

“Actually,” Kita says, a dawning light in his eyes, “I think he might be good for your ego.”

“Good for my—you're kiddin’ me!”

“Kiyoomi is pretty blunt, huh,” Kita says casually, smiling at Sakusa, who is watching both of them with a cool, unaffected stare, the prick. “It’d be good to have someone to put you in place when I’m not there, Atsumu. He’s also had high praises from previous employers. Must I remind you again the importance of having a bodyguard?”

“A bodyguard!” Atsumu flails. “Not an asshole!”

“I’ve already updated Kiyoomi on your work schedule,” Kita continues. “As I’ve mentioned before, he’ll be with you 24/7, which means he’ll be sleepin' in the bedroom opposite yours. This will just be until we figure out the source of the threats, or until we know they’re harmless. You should show him around the house and the studio. Kiyoomi, I hope you’ll make yourself comfortable. If there’s anythin' you need, you have my number.”

“What about _my_ comfort?” Atsumu strangles out. “You never told me I’d be followed around by this rude ass shit pi—”

“Well then,” Kita says, “I’ll leave ya to it,” and is gone.

Atsumu fumes, the anger simmering still beneath. It’s one thing to say that his songs are shit—that, he can handle whether or not it’s true—but to say that he doesn’t belong in music is another thing altogether. He glares at Sakusa, who is stepping into the room and peering at the violins that hang on the wall, at the guitars nestled in the open cases, at the table filled with flutes and harmonicas beside the window where a breeze stirs the curtains restive.

“So,” Atsumu says, crossing his arms, “are you able to show me your face or not?”

Sakusa turns his head, hesitates for a moment, and pulls down his mask. Atsumu has to mentally stomp again.

“Alright,” he mutters as Sakusa pulls it back up, “good to know what someone who’s gonna tail me all the time looks like. Sakusa Kiyoomi, right? You won’t mind if I call ya Omi-kun, will you?”

Sakusa turns to face him now, full body. Atsumu notes with sadistic glee the twitch in his eye, the disdain apparent on his face even beneath the mask. _He’s still pretty expressive with half his face covered, huh_.

“Don’t call me that,” Sakusa says.

“Omi-Omi it is, then,” Atsumu concludes blithely. “Look, do whatever. When I’m not workin’ or playin’ music, I’m out drinkin’ with friends. It’s your choice whether or not you wanna follow me. I don’t care. The more you stay outta my way, the better.”

Sakusa frowns. “You really are a brat.”

“Really, now,” Atsumu says. “You hurt my feelings.”

“Hey,” Sakusa says, “the comment I made earlier, I didn’t mea—”

“Whatever, just shut your mouth,” Atsumu cuts him off. The annoyance is seeping out of him, finding an outlet through his words, his fisted hands. How dare this man slander his music and all the effort and passion he pours into it? How dare he offend and try to retract it like it meant nothing? He has no right. _I hate him. I hate him._

“I’ll show you around the goddamn house,” Atsumu says, caustic. He stomps over to the piano and gathers all the music sheets into the binder, bleary with resentment. “The sooner this anonymous threat thing finishes, the less we’ll see each other, the better.” 

Sakusa sighs. “This is going to be more difficult than I thought.”

“Sounds like we’re on the same page,” Atsumu says, and snaps the binder shut.

.


	2. Atsumu

There are five things Atsumu notices about Sakusa, seven days into meeting each other.

One: he hates crowds.

Two: he avoids physical contact as much as possible.

Three: he has abnormally flexible wrists.

Four: he almost always wears a suit.

And five: his eyes are black and extremely expressive.

Atsumu feels a bit creepy, mentally noting these things down like some sort of weird-ass googly-eyed stalker, but he figures that no harm will come in trying to find Sakusa’s weaknesses.

 _My mental age really does drop by five sometimes,_ he thinks, impressed with Osamu. Because even though his initial anger has subsided, in place of it is dry bitterness, the taste of hinted failure in his mouth pungent.

Plus, it’s not like the last three things are explicitly weaknesses.

And it’s not like the thing about suits is really relevant. To anything. It’s just somewhat odd that in the past week of spending almost every hour with Sakusa in his shadow, Atsumu never catches him wearing anything besides either a black or grey suit out in public. _Y’know this isn’t a requirement for the job, right,_ Atsumu tells him, but Sakusa just shrugs. They don’t eat together, don’t spend any down time together, and so it has only been thrice that Atsumu sees him in a casual shirt and shorts as he silently strides along the hallways of the house.

(The first time that happened, Atsumu almost bit his tongue at how many damn _muscles_ Sakusa has on his arms and legs, but he’s going to pretend he didn’t.)

It does take some getting used to, having a stranger live in such close proximity to him. Atsumu’s house isn’t Gatsbyesque, but it is two stories of wide, spacious rooms with a rooftop and a small garden fenced-in. To his credit, he did used to live here with Osamu up until his damn twin relocated somewhere closer to work. And now, even though it’s certainly too large for one person, Atsumu had gotten used to living alone. Having Sakusa here is somewhat a matter of figuring out his own comfort and space, a matter of learning patience.

(Especially when he goes to bed knowing Sakusa is sleeping in the room closest to his, but he’s also going to pretend this thought doesn’t linger with him.)

And whenever they lock eyes in passing, amber-brown to black, Atsumu never gives anything but a jerk of the head and Sakusa a faint nod.

Needless to say, avoidance of each other is the norm. When it’s, well, unavoidable, the default interaction is never fully amicable, with Atsumu not quite yet forgiving of the snide insult from their first meeting, and Sakusa not allowing Atsumu to be ill-mannered towards him without retaliation.

“So,” Atsumu says, on the eighth morning, as he sits in the passenger seat with Sakusa behind the wheel, driving to the recording studio, “how bad is it?”

Sakusa spares him a fleeting glance. “How bad is what?”

“Your germaphobia. I don’t get why you chose this profession. You hate crowds and physical contact.”

“Skin-to-skin contact,” Sakusa corrects, training his eyes on the road. “Clothed physical contact is bearable if necessary.”

“But seriously though,” says Atsumu, “ _bodyguard?_ For a celebrity? Debatable life choices, Omi-Omi. You know it involves mobs and crowds of people, right?”

“Oh, wow, I never realized that,” says Sakusa. “My god, your insight is blinding.”

Atsumu frowns. “The sarcasm really pisses me off.”

Seven years a singer, and he has never had a stranger speak to him in such scathing tones. It has always been immediate pampering and gushing and fangirling. But now he’ll make an off-hand comment, his attitude cavalier, and it doesn’t matter whether or not he’s aware of any maliciousness he exudes, because Sakusa reacts like clockwork and launches into automatic scorn. If it weren’t for the lingering bad impression, Atsumu would’ve maybe said it was refreshing. Maybe.

“Then don’t talk to me like I’m ten,” says Sakusa. “And don’t talk to me about debatable life choices. If you had just withheld some unnecessarily nasty comments to other people, you wouldn’t get so much hate.”

“You think that if I’m perfectly nice, I won’t get death threats?” says Atsumu. “How naïve, Omi-Omi.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“I’m just tellin’ it as it is,” says Atsumu. “If you need to be coddled after a criticism, that’s your problem.”

“But that’s where you lack empathy,” says Sakusa. “People’s feelings aren’t playthings, last I checked.”

The sixth thing Atsumu notices about Sakusa: even though they are both blunt, Sakusa talks less, rambles less, and takes into account other people’s feelings more. It’s amusing, in a way. While Atsumu habitually lies and lacks a brain-to-mouth filter, Sakusa is able to mask some of his more biting thoughts with his expressions, and seems incapable of lying. Atsumu supposes that’s what Kita calls “tact”. _But then,_ he thinks, the irritation growing again in thorns, _why the hell would he make that senseless comment the first time we met?_

“You suck,” he blurts out. “I wonder how the hell Kita-san and Aran-kun had so much praise for you, even though you hate touchin’ people. Didja really pass the bodyguard training thing?”

Sakusa glares at him, knuckles tight on the steering wheel. “Why are you being difficult?”

“I mean,” says Atsumu. “Don’t you need to know CPR to be a bodyguard? How didja manage to pass that shit? I wouldn’t trust you to do that.”

Sakusa slams on the brakes. Without warning, Atsumu feels himself being pulled forward, the seatbelt digging into his skin painfully as the car screeches and halts to a stop.

“We’re here,” Sakusa says coolly.

“Damn,” Atsumu says. “Did I step on a landmine?”

Sakusa only scowls, eyes glum and stormy and harbouring something akin to hatred. Atsumu blanches despite himself.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, the genuineness of the apology almost surprising. “That was uncalled for.”

There is a beat of silence. Then Sakusa simply says, “I’ll get your door,” and climbs out.

 _Argh,_ Atsumu thinks, watching Sakusa round the car, _I went too far._ He admits to being immature, definitely, and quite selfish, but with his temper dwarf-sized and his words like razor, everything more often than not comes out as cruelty.

Here is the truth: Sakusa did nothing wrong. Opinions are opinions, and Atsumu is the last person fit to say that people can’t voice them. So if he’s being honest with himself, he’s frustrated. Frustrated that of all people, Kita chose to hire the one person Atsumu struggles to deal with. Frustrated that Sakusa manages to get under his skin and rip the hypocrisy out of him.

Frustrated that despite the blow to his ego, Atsumu can’t help but linger his gaze on Sakusa’s form, his angles, his hair, the way he squares his shoulders, and understands without a doubt that this is purely physical attraction—a tiny seed of desire planted amongst bitter animosity.

“For god’s sake, think with your head,” he murmurs.

Flashes go off. Atsumu hears the muffled sounds of people shrieking in the near distance, the shrill feminine voices of most of his fans making inaudible the desperate shouts of paparazzi, drawing closer and closer until they’re dulled only by the glass window. Sakusa now stands beside his door, one hand on the handle. Their eyes meet, amber-brown to black, and Atsumu has just a brief second to think, _he_ _must be a heartbreaker with eyes like that,_ before the door opens.

.

The first recording of the new song turns out to be a fail. It’s not too bad that the rabbit-eared instrumentalists are not getting the emphasis on the notes correct, but what thwarts the whole session is the sound engineers’ mixing. Atsumu feels like grating on sand.

“That was pretty good, hey?” says Aran, clasping his hands together in triumph.

Atsumu thumps his head on the table. “Noooo-oooo,” he whines. “It was off and clunky and horrid. Terrible. A travesty.”

“It wasn’t bad at all,” Kita says. “You’re bein' harsh again.”

Atsumu sighs. “I’m gonna need a drink after this.”

“C'mon,” Aran says, lips curling up in amusement. “I’m a recordin' studio manager. I’ve listened to millions of songs, good and bad and everythin' in between. This is great for the first session.”

“If by ‘great’ you mean ‘trash’,” Atsumu groans.

“Stop it,” says Kita. “Your perfectionism can make you really dramatic sometimes.”

Atsumu curls in on himself. Perhaps it isn’t obvious to either Kita or Aran, or perhaps it doesn’t matter to them, but every song he has released in the span of his career has been tunnel-visioned into nothing personal. Every note has been planned, every melody has been reconstructed from abandon to care. They are great songs, he can admit. Amazing songs. His best. _But isn’t his vulnerability something not meant to be kept under lock and key?_

Atsumu has never mentioned this to Kita and Aran. He isn’t even sure if he entirely understands it himself. So he does what he does best, and puts it behind him.

“Has anyone seen Rintarou?” asks Kita. “That boy has been slackin' off a lot lately.”

“Guess it’s not that fun anymore without Osamu around,” says Aran, leering at Atsumu and dodging the pen that’s thrown at him.

“I’m in a bad mood,” says Atsumu. “Spare me.”

“But really, if he’s worn out, he should tell me,” says Kita, pulling out his phone and most likely searching through his contacts for Suna. “I’ll give him days off. It’s tiring being a booking agent.”

“Speaking of tired, let’s call it a day.” Aran yawns. “I’m sure everyone else is exhausted too.”

“Except for Kiyoomi, it seems,” says Kita. “I don’t think he even sat down all these hours.”

Atsumu looks up. Sure enough, Sakusa is standing, near but not quite leaning against the far wall beside the entrance, his hands in his pockets. His eyes are casting across the room, lazy and alert but almost bored; although that’s maybe how he mainly looks.

The seventh thing Atsumu notices: even in a room full of people, full of sound, Sakusa always stands in a corner, neither making any sort of effort to interact with others nor seeming content. It pulls something out of Atsumu. Pity, perhaps, or maybe favour.

“How didja even meet him, Aran-kun?” he asks. “He seems so unsociable.”

“I knew his cousin,” says Aran, “and his ex-girlfriend.”

Atsumu leans back in his chair. “Huh.”

Aran turns to meet him. “You seem surprised.”

“I just can’t really imagine a crappy guy like that being all lovey-dovey. Kinda gross.”

“Don’t be rude,” Kita says, lightly whacking him on the head. “Just because someone isn’t lovey-dovey with ya doesn’t mean they can’t be with someone else. Kiyoomi is perfectly nice, by the way. I don’t think he meant what he said before.”

“Jealous, aren’t you?” says Aran, and laughs when Atsumu throws another pen at him.

“I need a drink,” Atsumu repeats with great feeling, and reaches for his phone.

Thirty unread messages. One of them is a sweet _Have a good day, I love you_ text from his mom, one an exasperated _where tf did u put my bamboo roller????_ from Osamu, and twenty-eight are from the Black Jackals group chat. 

Atsumu smiles. He sends _I love u too, how was ur day?_ and _how should i know?? did u check up ur ass??_ to the respective people, and opens the group chat.

He’s impressed that even though the group contains only three people and had only been created last year, Bokuto and Hinata managed to accumulate their texts enough to create an ancient scroll. Both infamous singers, but they’re like children on nitrous oxide.

The first twenty messages of the day, starting at 9:02 AM, are mostly Bokuto being bored and spamming the group with pictures of Akaashi, and Hinata blindly supporting his shenanigans. Atsumu scrolls through, stumbling on a photo of Akaashi when he woke up this morning—hair sticking out in odd places and looking like he doesn’t know what dimension he’s in—and has to stifle a laugh.

Then he catches sight of the text he’s been hoping would appear: Bokuto says, _GUYS LETS GO TO THE CLUB TONITE!‼‼ THE USUAL PLACE OFC??_ and before anyone can reply has already moved on to bombard the group with five different pictures of puppies.

“Perfect,” Atsumu says and sends. With pressing speed, he packs up his things to head out and shouts goodbye to everyone.

“Be safe,” Kita calls after him, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” and even Aran has to chuckle at the futility of that.

Atsumu makes his way over to the glass door where the elevator hangs in the hallway outside, and tilts his head at Sakusa. Sakusa catches his eyes and closes the distance between them.

“I wanna go home,” says Atsumu. “And then I’m goin’ to a club later. If you have problems with that, I’ll ask one of the part-time bodyguards to accompany me.”

“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I do,” Sakusa says, eyebrows raised.

“Your choice.” Atsumu shrugs, one-shoulder, and the glass door wobbles in its frame as he shoves it out of his way.

They stand in the elevator, shoulders a foot apart, the awkward silence making Atsumu feel like a problem child. But he’s drained and upset and uncertain, and a second apology is well above his emotional capacity right now.

“So,” he says, because breaking the silence is not, “what didja think of the session today?”

Sakusa doesn’t turn to look at him when he says, “Fine,” and, without missing a beat, “but kind of clunky.”

Atsumu tries not to smile. “Right?”

.

Black Jackals is a club owned by Kuroo Tetsurou, so naturally it looks like the classy epitome of a sex den.

The bouncer stands like a statue at the entrance, his hands clasped in front of him, eyeing everyone with sharp suspicion. The outside of the nightclub is swarmed with the constant chatter of people out smoking, the cigarettes or joints tucked between their fingers, burning them alive. Their voices barely drown out the music inside - music so loud that even from the streets your heart beats with it, louder and louder as you go in, the heat enveloping you, the smell of sweat and bodies and nauseating alcohol powerful enough to sink you. It's a dream, in a way, of bright lights amidst darkness. One that you'll forget come morning.

Atsumu has frequented this club for a year, ever since he became friends with Bokuto and Hinata. It was one night, when they are feeling particularly enraptured and feverish over a well-performed show together, that Bokuto told them, _my friend owns a club and he invited us to come,_ and so they went.

The first time Atsumu met Kuroo that night, he had said, not-a-whisper to Bokuto, _Are ya sure he ain’t a con man? He looks sleazy._

 _Ah,_ Kuroo had said, _so you’re the worse twin._

That same night, Bokuto instantly fell in love with one of the bartenders. The rest unfolded from there.

Having Atsumu, Bokuto, and Hinata as regulars helped their business a tremendous amount. Over time, it attracted more and more people of wealth; Black Jackals’s bottle prices increased, their guest list tightened, their DJ applications skyrocketed, and their security team doubled. But the greatest, most respectful thing was in Kuroo refusing to let Black Jackals become an exclusive nightclub, despite their high demand. That’s something Atsumu can appreciate.

Atsumu stops when he passes the entrance, the sight of the dance floor inside visible, and turns back to Sakusa.

“Urgkh,” Sakusa says, looking like he wants to crawl underground.

Atsumu grins. It’s a strange kind of funny to see Sakusa unsettled. Maybe it just gives him an illicit feeling of power to see someone who is always donning a perfectly tailored, unwrinkled three-piece suit fluster. Compared to Sakusa, Atsumu is tieless and rumpled, his dress shirt creased at the elbows and unbuttoned halfway down his chest.

“Leave if ya want to,” Atsumu raises his voice over the music—dim but reverberating through the walls. “I’m tellin’ ya, I frequent this club and I know people. Even if I’m attacked here, my friends are with me.”

“Again, Miya,” Sakusa says, “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I do.”

“Wow, it’s really hard to hear you over the mask and the music,” Atsumu says, struggling not to laugh. “But I got it. Suit yourself.”

He turns and walks inside, the heat and darkness of the room made unfamiliar by the presence of Sakusa obediently trailing behind him. _I bet he’ll give up in 15 minutes max,_ Atsumu muses. Even he himself is revolted by the bodies writhing on the crowded floor, grinding and sweating all over each other under the moving conical, coloured lights.

Instantly and abruptly, Atsumu is surrounded by flocks of girls, cooing and squealing and asking him to shake their hands, sign their bodies, and take ridiculously-posed pictures with them. Their voices manage to carry over the deafening song booming through the speakers, and Atsumu forces down his knee-jerk fantasy of taking out their larynx. Out of his peripheral vision, Sakusa steps forward, an arm out and ready to interfere. Atsumu holds up a hand, _no,_ and agrees to oblige them. He can bear another five minutes of torture, only so that the numbing taste of alcohol afterwards would be that much sweeter.

It ends up taking ten minutes, but the torment does end. He sends them his most winning smile, excuses himself, and before they can express disappointment practically flees.

Atsumu doesn’t know who designed the club, but Kuroo’s a smart man to allow the inclusion of two bars in it. One is near the dance floor, arranged to provide already inebriated people their dispensable alcohol. One is in another room, accessed by a hallway full of mirrors where Atsumu is now half-jogging through.

“Tsum-Tsum!”

Atsumu follows the voice when he enters the room and spots Bokuto, up on his feet and sprinting towards him.

“You’re here!” Bokuto shouts at full volume, tackling him into a hug. “I haven’t seen you in so long! Hello, Tsum-Tsum!”

“Please—my ear,” says Atsumu.

“Oh, sorry,” says Bokuto, untangling himself. His hair is slicked back and he grins like the sun. “It’s just so good to see you! Hinata can’t make it – apparently he has to sort out something with Kageyama. But I’m so glad you’re here!”

“Does he really?” Atsumu pouts. “I was lookin’ forward to seein’ both of you.”

“Ah, that’s okay. We’ll get brunch sometime soon!” Bokuto claps him on the back sympathetically, and then suddenly drops his voice down to a hush. “By the way, don’t be alarmed, but there’s this gloomy-looking guy in a mask behind you, and he’s been staring.”

“Oh, well, yes,” says Atsumu. “That’s my new bodyguard, Omi-kun.”

“Oh!” Bokuto says, and swivels over for a proper introduction, although he himself needs none. “I’m Bokuto Koutarou. Nice to meet you, Omi-kun!”

Atsumu clamps a hand over his mouth to stifle the laugh at the disdain on Sakusa’s face.

“Please, call me Sakusa,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”

“Aren’t you gonna be hot with the gloves and mask?” says Bokuto. 

“I’m used to it.”

“Oh yeah, Bokkun,” says Atsumu, “he’s a germaphobe, so don’t touch him.”

The warning is flippant, said without much care, but something soft flashes over Sakusa’s face. Atsumu stares at him for a moment too long, hoping that whatever that was will return for another clearer glimpse, but finally catches himself and tears his eyes away.

 _Think with your head_.

“Come on,” says Bokuto, “let’s get you a drink.”

The music is dulled, less deafening now. There aren’t as many people in this room. Limp, the dim red-yellow lights hang above their heads amorously, casting shadows across those chattering on the couches, those standing around hawk-like, those sitting on the barstools with half-empty glasses in their hands, the ice in their drink not even close to melting. Atsumu notices a couple of girls—styled hair and bold lipstick—at a corner of the room, giggling in his direction.

“Keiji-kun,” Atsumu calls, when they stroll over to the bar.

Akaashi looks up from the beer tap and smiles. “Miya-san. How was your day?”

“I need four shots of tequila.”

Akaashi raises his eyebrows. “That bad?”

“That bad,” Atsumu says, watching with warm affection as Bokuto half-leaps over the counter to pull Akaashi in for a kiss. Akaashi laughs and kisses back, a hand on his cheek, and faintly blushes when they break.

“C’mon,” says Atsumu, waving a dismissive hand, “You’d think that by the thousandth time, you’d stop gettin’ flustered. I’ve seen you all over each other for a year now, y’know.”

Bokuto grins. “Keiji’s just shy.”

Atsumu snorts and adjusts his seat on the barstool. A quick glance tells him it’s just Akaashi and Shirofuku working at the bar tonight; and judging by their hasty walks and the number of drinkers, they’re in for a busy night.

He turns gingerly back. The couple of girls at the corner are now staring seductively at him, so he sends them the nastiest glare. It does the trick: they flinch, scowl with embarrassment, and marches furiously away.

“You should stop doing that,” Akaashi says gently, pouring into the four shot glasses on the table. “It wouldn’t hurt to reject them nicely.”

“Can’t be bothered,” says Atsumu. “Can’t I have a drink with my friends without bein’ interrupted?”

Akaashi sends him a disapproving look and reaches under the counter.

“No need for lime and salt,” Atsumu says, and empties the first shot.

“Oouf,” Bokuto says.

Akaashi blinks. “Yikes,” he adds. “What happened today?”

“In short, bad recordin’ session,” Atsumu says, not very intent on giving the long version, which involves a loss of personal space, and a certain cruel mistake this morning on his end with a certain bodyguard (who, Atsumu notices, has retreated himself to an isolated corner, his hunched stance and displeased glare practically screaming to everyone, _if you go near me I’ll put something through your windpipe_ ).

Atsumu downs the remaining three shots.

“Ahh, tequila,” he says, burning but satisfied. “Thank you, benevolent gods of Mexico.”

“You’re going to get liver failure,” says Akaashi. “I’m watching you. The second you’re too plastered to walk, I’m stopping your alcohol intake.”

“What kinda bartender are ya?” says Atsumu, horrified.

“The kind that’s your friend,” says Akaashi. “Do you want to talk about your day?”

“No,” says Atsumu. “Tell me ‘bout yours.”

Bokuto and Akaashi exchange a glance. Then Akaashi smiles fondly, leaves them both with martini glasses, and moves away to the next customer. Atsumu leans onto the palm of his hand, his elbow rested on the marble table, and listens as Bokuto rambles on about his ecstatic life filled with Akaashi and music and friends and sunshine. It’s like living in a constant state of exclamation marks, Atsumu thinks with amusement, the drink sloshing as he circles it idly. Akaashi really is dating the human embodiment of a puppy.

It goes on for a while. Atsumu doesn’t know for how long; he’s enjoying the comfort of hearing about a friend’s life, cracking teases here and there, and enjoying the tequila that warms in his stomach.

When it’s interrupted as Bokuto’s phone makes a twittering noise at them.

“Ah, crap!” Bokuto yelps, shooting to his feet when he sees the message. “I forgot to bring Konoha his—crap!”

Bokuto looks wildly at Atsumu, desperate, and Atsumu sighs.

“Shoo,” he says, wagging his hand. “Just go.”

“I’m so sorry,” Bokuto sputters. “I—it’ll just take an hour or two, if you’ll still be here—”

“Don’t worry,” says Atsumu. “Go. I’ll probably still be decayin’ here when you come back.”

“That’s not—ah, gosh, sorry, Tsum-Tsum! Keiji, I have to go,” he calls, and makes a blind grab for his wallet. “See you later!” And he bolts.

“What happened?” Akaashi asks, concerned as he trots over.

“He had to go give someone somethin’,” says Atsumu, feeling lame. “Konoha, I think it was?”

“Oh, yes,” says Akaashi, understanding.

Atsumu groans pathetically and slumps over the table. “I am sad. I am heartbroken. I’ll just sit here and rot away into a pile of depression.”

“You’re being dramatic, Miya-san,” says Akaashi. “I’m sorry that I’m working right now.”

Atsumu perks up. “Then gimme another shot?”

Akaashi appears to consider it for half a second, then swiftly makes another glass of martini and pushes it at him. “You had four shots in ten seconds,” he explains. “Please drink this and I will after twenty minutes.”

“Are we not friends anymore,” Atsumu whines at Akaashi’s retreating back.

Disappointed, he pouts and gulps down a third of his drink. Akaashi may be right. The tequila really is coursing through his veins now, heating up, loosening his mind. But it’s the least it can do to forget him the tiresomeness of the past week.

Then he feels someone sidle up next to him.

“Miya Atsumu,” comes a rough voice beside his ear, “is it?”

Atsumu turns his head. The man behind him is smiling, more calculating than friendly, and settles comfortably into the seat next to him. He has frizzly dark hair, pierced ears, an expensive tie; is slightly older, lean, built. Atsumu decides with distant objectivity that he’s good-looking. _And quite forward,_ he mentally adds, noting the sly smirk and the calloused hand on his thigh.

“Subtle,” Atsumu comments.

“Only because I heard you’re a man of candour,” the man says.

Atsumu snorts. “’Candid’ isn’t an accurate word to describe me.”

“I see,” the stranger says, his smile careful. “Then what is?”

Atsumu smirks. He doesn’t much mind this arousing turn of events. Ever since he grows to be of legal age, Atsumu has made it a sporadic hobby to bring a stranger home every once in a while, the new unknown of it more often than not thrilling.

The hand on his thigh is moving up and inwards, tentative but full of intent. The alcohol flows through him, tears down his inhibitions, and Atsumu’s brain zeroes in on the single need for touch, for the crinkle of bedsheets in his hands, for the anticipation of someone bending him over and filling him up.

“You can call me anythin’ you like,” he says, never one for prevarication, “when you fuck me tonight.”

The man smiles, lewd and indelicate. “The name’s Haru, by the way.”

Atsumu listens, unfocused, as Haru goes on to introduce himself, his profession, his interests in the most boastful way possible. _Oh, yes, I grew up with nothing and rose to become a self-made man;_ and _those bastards at work are just envious of me, but that’s understandable;_ and of course: _please excuse me, but I have to say that I have such a deep appreciation for music, you know, it really moves my soul to hear songs as amazing as yours._ Yada yada yada. Didn’t Atsumu already make his intentions clear? He supposes it makes sense that some people would like to take the time for a famous person to know them personally, but just cut to the damn chase, my _god_. It’s thinning his patience.

And it is why, mere minutes into talking to Haru, Atsumu finds his distracted gaze wandering over to where Sakusa is.

Sakusa is still at the same place he was since the beginning, back not quite touching the wall, his shoulders hunched defensively and his head turning to scan the room with vigilance. They are too far away from each other for Atsumu to tell whether or not Sakusa sees him staring. _It’s definitely been more than an hour,_ he thinks, impressed that Sakusa hasn’t even tried to budge, let alone leave.

The eighth thing Atsumu notices about Sakusa: he sees everything through to the end.

_This idiot._

He watches—Haru’s heedless rambling a dull buzz in his ears—as a girl in a silk dress approaches Sakusa. Her mouth moves, one hand tucking a strand of hair behind her ear while the other reaching out to grab the sleeve of Sakusa’s suit. He politely lets her touch him for a short second before pulling away; his head shakes, once, and he holds up a hand in a clear and transparent signal of rejection.

As she walks away, a slight pique in her steps, Atsumu sees Sakusa’s shoulders slowly drop as he lets out a long breath.

 _Idiot,_ Atsumu wants to yell. _If you're_ that _uncomfortable, just get outta here._

And suddenly, he doesn’t feel like it anymore.

“Hey,” he says, startling Haru out of his monologue. “Sorry, I’m gonna call it a night.”

“What?” Haru says.

“Keiji-kun,” Atsumu calls. Akaashi stops mid-way through setting out a salt shaker on the table and turns to look at him, inquisitive. “I’m leavin’. I’ll tell Bokkun, but I guess he’ll come back here for you anyway.”

“He will, there’s no need,” says Akaashi. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m just tired,” Atsumu lies, gathering up his things and patting Haru on the shoulder, friendly and regretful. “Sorry ‘bout this, I’m not feelin’ well. I can get your number, if you’re down for another night instead?”

“Get home safe,” Akaashi says, a ponderous look on his face, before another customer cries for him and he has to quickly move towards them.

“Are you serious?” Haru says.

“I’m just not feelin’ well,” repeats Atsumu. Haru gapes at him, incredulous, and Atsumu bites back a laugh at how much like a fish he looks.

“You’re an asshole,” says Haru.

“Oh,” Atsumu breathes out, “you’re one of those.”

Years of hooking up with strangers had mainly taught him how to spot Entitled Pricks, and Atsumu is now cursing the alcohol for letting lust win against judgment. He should’ve known when Haru started the self-gloating rant.

Atsumu briskly stands up, the barstool behind him almost toppling over, and swings around to tread over to Sakusa. He makes it until they are an arm’s length apart—where it is visible that Sakusa’s chin has lifted to scowl questioningly at him—when all of a sudden, Atsumu feels someone forcefully grab his arm and yank him back, the grip anything but gentle. His instinct kicks in as he whirls around and tries to pull away, but stills when he’s met with Haru’s face, contorted and full of bitter fury.

“You _asshole_ ,” Haru hisses. “Is it fun to lead someone on like that and then leave them hanging?”

“Lead someone o—I met you _ten_ _minutes ago_!” Atsumu says, the shock of someone uttering such preposterousness overwhelming the anger that’s bound to kick in. “My bad for changin’ my mind, but I don’t owe you anythin’. Besides, I suggested you gimme your num—”

“You think everything revolves around you,” Haru snarls, his fingers digging painfully into Atsumu’s skin. “Do you come in here and think that everyone’s gonna fawn over you? That you own everything? You’re just a little rich kid with some fame who think they can do whatever they want and get away with it.”

Atsumu barely has time to register Sakusa’s arm reaching out before the shock gives way to anger. He grabs the front of Haru’s shirt with as little care as he can muster, and shoves him hard against the nearest wall. Haru chokes, the breath knocked out of his lungs, and finally shuts up.

“ _Listen up, you little shit_ ,” Atsumu growls. “I toldja I wanted to call it a night. If you can’t understand that, you shouldn’t be hittin’ on anybody. Fuckin’ shit!”

He’s aware, both by logic and by the creeping sense of stares boring into his back, that people are filming this scene unfolding on their phones. It’s annoying, only because this is going to make Kita fume at him tomorrow morning.

Haru’s eyes are wide, his nose scrunched up in what appears to be embarrassment, but then he opens his mouth to say, “You’re everything they said you were,” and Atsumu considers shattering all his teeth.

Except that Sakusa has put a gloved hand on his shoulder, and said, “Miya.”

Atsumu’s fist tightens, straining the pull on the fabric of Haru’s shirt—one last lingering moment of exasperation—and lets go. 

“Let’s fuckin’ go,” he says to Sakusa, and storms out.

.

The first half of the car ride is mostly Atsumu spewing curses and profanities, every sentence including an expletive that Kita has repeatedly advised him not to use in public, if possible ever.

Once he cools down, Atsumu exhales heavily and slouches back into his seat, satisfied.

“Better?” says Sakusa.

“Much,” says Atsumu.

This has happened several times before, not quite in the same manner but quite in the same vein. Yet it never gets any less infuriating.

“You looked like you were gonna punch him,” Sakusa says.

“I thought about it,” Atsumu mutters. “Obviously wasn’t gonna do it.” _But see, I can take care of myself just fine,_ he refrains from adding. _No bodyguard needed._

Sakusa hums in feigned acknowledgement. “And why did you want to leave early?”

“Oh,” says Atsumu, deciding to lie. “I just got bored.”

Sakusa doesn’t say anything. Atsumu stares out the window, his semi-reflection overlapping the near darkness outside as they drive away from the hubbub of downtown Tokyo.

“That guy,” says Sakusa. “Were you flirting with him?”

Atsumu turns to glare at him, ready to refute the insinuation that that excuses anything, when he catches the confused furrow of his brows and the way his eyes stare innocently ahead.

“Oh,” says Atsumu, surprised. “Did you not know I was gay?”

Sakusa glances at him. “No.”

Atsumu grins, cheshire. Guess Kita didn’t think it was an important thing to mention, but, “Didja not read the _Personal Life_ section on the Wikipedia page? Or see any of the comments on my social media?”

“It was none of my business.”

Atsumu crosses his arms and leans back, amused. “Really,” he says. “So d’ya have a problem with this?”

Sakusa looks at him like he had just spoken Russian. “Of course not.”

“Hm. Well, it woulda come up eventually,” says Atsumu, “given that I like bringin’ people home and you sleep in the room next to mine.”

Silence.

Then more silence. Unnerved at the lack of response when normally Sakusa would’ve quipped back a sarcastic comment, Atsumu looks over at him.

“Are you,” he says after a long, processed moment, “are you _blushing_?”

“Shut up,” Sakusa grumbles.

“You are!” Atsumu says gleefully. As telling as observing half of someone’s face on one side can allow, the tip of Sakusa’s ear has turned pink, the parts of his face unmasked slightly red. “From _that_? My god, aren’tcha a prude little thing. You’ve had sex before, no?”

“I don’t see how this is important information.”

“I mean, it’s not,” says Atsumu, having fun with Sakusa’s discomfort. “But what, would you get flustered if I warn you that I might be a bit loud? Does the mention of intercourse send you into overdrive?”

“Shut up Miya, or I’m not afraid to crash the car.”

“That really defeats the purpose of your job,” says Atsumu. “Aran-kun told me you had a girlfriend.”

Sakusa gives him an exasperated look, like he has just tasted sewage water. “You are annoying,” he says, “and nosy. Yes, I’ve had sex before. Does this satisfy your curiosity, or should I detail my sexual proclivities?”

Atsumu grins. “I wonder if this breaches our professional boundaries.”

“I can make you breach the windshield, if you’d like.”

“Kinky,” Atsumu says. And because the alcohol is still running through his blood, because he’s not drunk but tipsy enough to be stripped of all reluctance and restraint, he adds, “By the way, I’m sorry about this mornin’.”

Sakusa pauses. “This morning?”

“Yeah. The CPR thing. That was cruel, what I said.”

Another pause. “But you already apologized.”

“Well shit, you didn’t say anything back,” Atsumu snaps, irritated. “How was I supposed to know you're not cryin’ in a corner about it?”

The corners of Sakusa’s eyes crinkle, the way they do when you smile, and Atsumu momentarily wishes he can see the soft curve of his mouth underneath the mask.

“We’re here,” Sakusa says, braking.

They’re on the curb in front of the entrance to the gates, the dark fences tall and pointy, the house void of light behind the foliage of garden trees. The high beams blink out.

“Is this how you’re gonna end all our car conversations?” Atsumu says.

Sakusa looks at him like he’s stupid. “I mean,” he says, “the fuck? What else am I supposed to say when we arrive?”

“Shush,” says Atsumu, climbing out of the car, “I’m swayin’,” and he is.

Sakusa looks unimpressed. “Don’t think I’m gonna catch you if you fall.”

“Now _that’s_ cruel,” Atsumu says, and cackles.

They walk through the garden path and into the house, the lick of night-cool wind catching on Sakusa’s hair, on Atsumu’s cheek. He feels slightly better, the tension and guilt and self-criticism of the day partly gone.

Conversation is scarce as they make their way up the stairs and through the hallway, but devoid of the usual brute. They get to the entrances of their rooms, and when Atsumu opens his door, the unexpected gush of wind almost knocks him over.

“What,” he begins to say, astonished, but trails off when he sees that his window has been broken, cracked in a spiderweb ripple. It leaves a pool of glass fragments on the floor, sprawled across the tiles and under the table. There is a rock in the midst of it.

“Argh, not again,” he groans. “They’re so unoriginal.”

“Shit,” says Sakusa behind him. “Did someone break in?”

“No,” says Atsumu. If someone had, they would’ve had to get through the gates, where a security alarm system has been built in. Sakusa already knew that, but Atsumu figures he’s just overly cautious.

He walks over, picks up the rock, and unfurls the piece of paper from it.

 _I HOPE YOU KILL YOURSELF,_ it reads, _ID BE HAPPY TO DO IT FOR YOU._

“Huh,” says Atsumu. “That’s horrible and weirdly cheerful. They’re missin' an apostrophe though.”

“This is _awful_ ,” Sakusa says, sounding disturbed. “How are you not upset?”

“I have better things to do,” Atsumu says, stumbling out the door, “like cleanin’ up this mess. I’ll go get the broom.”

Atsumu knew, pursuing a career where fame is a side effect, that with his rotten personality, the staggering amount of people who hate him would be unavoidable. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to him, but he would hate for his family and Kita to say that they are not proud of him, or for Osamu to say that he’s led a happier life than Atsumu has.

So this is troublesome, and the sooner it can end, the better.

When he comes back, broom and dustpan in hand, Sakusa is kneeling under the table. His head is bowed, one knee on the ground, and his gloved fingers are sweeping the tiny pieces of fragments out to the open moonlit space. Atsumu wants to laugh. It’s a little comical, seeing Sakusa huddled under a table that is way too small for him. 

Then impulsion overtakes Atsumu: he sucks in a breath, summons all the vocal strength he has, and yells, “ _GAH!_ ”

Sakusa jumps, startled, and bonks his head on the table’s underside.

And Atsumu loses it. He clutches at his sides and doubles over, the laughter tearing out of him in fits. His stomach hurts, he can’t breathe, can’t stop—he laughs until tears form in his eyes and standing becomes a difficulty.

“ _Oh god_ ,” Atsumu gasps once he regains control of his breath. He looks up, expecting to see unbridled annoyance, but instead Sakusa is staring at him. The look on his face is strange—not one Atsumu can translate.

“What?” Atsumu says, still wheezing.

“You’re frustrating,” is all Sakusa says. He stands, dusts off the nonexistent dirt on his knees, walks over, and yanks the broom and dustpan out of Atsumu’s hands.

Atsumu chuckles, and keeps on chuckling as Sakusa goes back to the pile of glass and cleans it up.

“I could’ve done it myself, y’know,” he says, watching Sakusa dump all the shards in the trashcan.

“I’m a germaphobe,” says Sakusa. “Cleaning is nice.”

“Right,” says Atsumu, deciding that he needs to sit down. He staggers over to the bed, grabs the nearest guitar, and flops onto the mattress. The pegs twist easily as he tunes it, one string at a time, the notes ringing alive in the dead silence.

Sakusa is still standing near the window, watching him.

And because he’s tipsy, Atsumu’s feeling particularly generous.

“I came up with a new melody,” he says, falling onto his back atop the bed. The ceiling comes into view, covered in patches of moonlight, here and there, here. “I didn’t write the lyrics yet, so I’ll just sing the tune. D’ya want me to play it for you?”

“Well,” says Sakusa, “not really.”

“Then I’ll do it,” says Atsumu. And he does.

Seven years a singer, and Atsumu has never stopped chasing that invincible feeling of creating something whole, something moving, something sound. The song pours out of him, rips from his chest through his throat and spills over the room, painting the air in richness and warmth. If he can, he would do this forever: play until the skin on his fingers wear off layer after layer, sing until he bleeds.

Atsumu doesn’t remember falling asleep. He doesn’t remember if Sakusa stayed for parts of it, half of it, or by some baffling miracle all of it. He only plays until his consciousness gives in before his fingers do, the song fading into a hazy tune from faraway, distant in his dream.

But Atsumu does remember that when he wakes, the guitar is tucked neatly in its case, and a blanket is drawn over him.

.


	3. Sakusa

Sakusa is browsing through the _Tokyo Employment Service Center_ website when Aran calls and arranges a meeting with him in the middle of August.

“Shinsuke has a job offer for ya,” Aran says when they meet, hands clasped on the table. The orange-lit restaurant is scarce with people, safe from the bustling and hustling of the streets outside.

“I am unemployed,” Sakusa says, “so yes.”

Aran tilts his head and chuckles. “You don’t even know who we’re asking you to protect. It’s a 24/7 job.”

“I’ve been hired by a few awful clients before,” Sakusa says, remembering the empty cans of beer surrounding a large middle-aged man, his belly protruding obscenely from his too-tight shirt. Or the lady with the shrill voice, too high for comfort, with her flirty touches and eyelash batting and _jeez_. Sakusa hides a shudder. “You and Kita are nice people. This person can’t be that bad.”

Aran hums. “What're your opinions on provocative, rude, arrogant foul-mouthed brats?”

“Um,” says Sakusa.

“Enjoy my company,” says Aran. “You might not like his very much.”

.

Sakusa has heard of Miya Atsumu before, but has never really been acquainted with his music. All he knows is that it used to be the “Miya twins”, but one of them broke off after three years of being in the industry in order to open an onigiri shop. A unique incident like that is bound to reach his ears at some point – it’s honestly a little bit funny. Sakusa can already take a guess at which twin he might like.

Sakusa signs the contract on Friday and is prepared to start work Monday. On Sunday afternoon, Komori shows up at his apartment door.

“I heard you’re working for Miya Atsumu now!” he exclaims with unfeigned excitement. “When do you start?”

“Take off your shoes,” Sakusa orders, and invites him in.

Sakusa’s apartment is a comfortable, sturdy one-bedroom in a fair-sized building almost on the outskirts of Tokyo, where not a lot of crowds and hence noises are around. The walls of his rooms are white, gleamed with the spotless silence of for-selected-company-only. The marbled kitchen is squeaky clean despite the frequent use, his couch is pristine, his floors shiny, his bed always freshly made. The few family and friends who visited have commented that his apartment gives off an eerie feeling as if no one lived here, but to Sakusa it’s his own space: his home; a place he can return to relax with the knowledge that nothing can harm him (that no grime can reach him).

 _You can afford a much bigger place,_ his mom had said to him, all in good faith. _You have a lot of money to spare, sweetheart._

 _I’m okay with this,_ he told her. _Waste not, want not._

That has been his principle for as long as he can remember. _Waste not want not._ Use carefully, live carefully, and you will never be in need. Twenty-four years old and Sakusa is just that. Cautious, calm, analytical, accustomed to treating everything through lens of logic. He has no desire for extravagance; all he wants to do is pay proper care and attention to everything, today, tomorrow, the day after that, and if he can remain satisfied as the years pile on, that will be enough.

“Miya Atsumu’s known to be quite a handful,” says Komori, trotting in behind him. “When do you start?”

Sakusa has forgotten to answer that question earlier. “Tomorrow.”

“Oh wow,” says Komori, dismounting his bag. Sakusa watches, his fingers twitching slightly. He’s always at least a bit unnerved when someone comes over, wearing clothes that the outside dirt has latched on, bringing things that god-knows-who has touched. But he is twenty-four, for fuck’s sake, and Komori is a cousin he’s known since youth, and these nerves must be calmed with practice.

“Have you looked him up yet?” Komori asks.

“No.” 

So they settle onto the couch next to the window, where occasionally a bird or plane flies by in the distance, and turns on the laptop.

 _Miya Atsumu,_ Sakusa types into Google. Countless pictures pop up in the image section, and Sakusa absentmindedly nods his head in acknowledgement. Yes, the face is familiar, although before he had mostly seen it paired with another of identical features. The twins were infamous, after all—not only for their talents but for their allure.

Atsumu is attractive, Sakusa thinks clinically. He has a boyish face; the photos show a strange mix of childish enthusiasm and smugness in the way he smiles, the way he stands, the way he stares into the camera as if he can tell what you’re thinking. It’s different from the way Osamu holds himself, Sakusa notes as he browses through the pictures with both of them present. Osamu seems quieter, less boisterous, although these judgments are mainly based on impersonal physical observations.

“I heard Atsumu threw a tantrum when Osamu left,” says Komori, “and they got into this huge fight, and—”

“It’s alright, I don’t need to know the details,” says Sakusa. If these are important matters that will affect his job performance, either Kita or Miya Atsumu himself will tell him.

He switches to the _All_ section and clicks on one of the YouTube videos that appear. It’s one of Atsumu’s live performances released this year.

 _Thank you for comin’ tonight, Kyoto!_ Atsumu shouts to the roaring crowd, the echo of his voice overriding their screams. _I love sharin’ my music with ya. Shall we?_

“I heard he writes all of his songs,” says Komori.

Sakusa knows, merely seconds into the video, that Atsumu is talented. If he has written this song, then there’s undoubtedly gift there. Atsumu is winking at one of his fans, his stance confident (almost cocky), his outfit salacious, and he’s tapping his leg to the rhythm of the instrumentalists behind him. It’s not quite Sakusa’s taste in music, but the melody _is_ nice and catchy, albeit quite pop and somewhat predictable.

It isn’t until Atsumu starts to sing that Sakusa stops blinking.

Atsumu is good. Real good. The resounding tenor of his voice sends an unusual tingle down Sakusa’s spine. Atsumu stands with his hands on the mic, the orange stage lights filling his presence with enchanting warm hues, and Sakusa is momentarily mesmerized by how glowing, how completely _happy_ he looks, inhibitions be gone.

“Did you know,” says Komori, “that they call him a tri-wielder?”

Sakusa isn’t quite ready to tear his eyes away from the video yet. “A what?”

“Tri-wielder. Singing is his thing, but he can play the piano, guitar, _and_ violin exceptionally well. So well that he could’ve been a musician or even a composer instead.”

Sakusa pauses the video and turns to look at Komori. “There’s a _word_ for that?”

“No, not really. But no other artists can do that, I think, at least in Japan, so he gets the title.” And then Komori lowers his tone down to a hush, harmless but full of implications. “Also, did you know that Atsumu likes me—”

“If it’s important, they’ll tell me,” Sakusa cuts him off. “I don’t need to hear rumours.”

“I don’t think this would be considered a rumour,” says Komori, but respectfully subsides. He goes back to his phone, verbally listing out Atsumu’s best hits and explaining how his career has been considerably steady despite Osamu’s absence and the amount of haters he’s gotten.

Sakusa has found it easier to interact with clients when he goes in blank, knowing nothing about the surrounding rumours and their publicly stated personal lives. It earns him their trust and ease. To lay it on the line though, it really comes down to the fact that Sakusa has no space in his brain to store these ideas and no time to care.

He turns back to the laptop. Komori’s enthusiastic ramble fades into white noise as Sakusa stares at Atsumu, frozen on the screen. He wonders if the singer will respect his personal space. The unrest is coming back, low but simmering in his skin, because Sakusa is careful, meticulous, and has lived his twenty-four years of life like stacking bricks of events, of memories, of incidents, of sorrows and joys and lessons learned, the whole of it shaping who he is today. But Atsumu seems different. Atsumu seems like he puts memories behind him.

.

“I love the kid,” says Kita. “He’s a lot sometimes, but he’s a sweet boy.”

They’re walking through the small garden at Miya Atsumu’s home, 8:54 a.m. on Monday morning. The smell of lilies and hyacinths waft through the air as the sun illuminates the garden a soft glow of shy green, signalling the end of summer.

“People have been warning me a great amount,” Sakusa discloses. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Kita nods. “All you really need to do is be by his side always. Let him do whatever he wants. He likes to do things his way.”

“Not dangerous things, I hope.”

“Not much,” says Kita, a hint of amusement in his tone. “But he’s impulsive. Back when Osamu was still singing, they would just pull off stunts onstage without practicing them first. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it isn’t. That applies to Atsumu’s personal life too. He’s disciplined, but he’ll do things on a whim, whatever his instinct tells him to.”

“That sounds foolish,” says Sakusa.

Kita smiles, the icy façade on his face cracking at the corners. “I’ll agree with you on that,” he says. “I hope it won’t be too hard on you, Kiyoomi. You said you boxed?”

In high school, yes. Sakusa had been such a quiet teenager that Komori’s parents took pity and urged Komori to invite him to the boxing club. Sakusa joined, more because he had nothing better to do.

Boxing was fun. It’s a martial arts of relatively little skin-to-skin contact, at least when it’s at a high school level. It’s glove against glove, the hits never quite scraping skin— _crouch, jab, left, cross, hook, duck, uppercut_ —and Sakusa gradually grew to like the force of punches, the smell of sweat and leather, the pain on his knuckles. He grew to be very good at it too. But getting into competitive boxing after high school was challenging. Never mind the concussions and injuries, he would have to be stripped of the shirt that gives him comfort, and physical contact would have been much more frequent, much more damaging.

What he did instead was follow Ushijima Wakatoshi.

Sakusa admits that half of it was competitiveness, and half of it was a crush born out of admiration. He met Ushijima in the boxing club, and after becoming quick friends and rivals, Sakusa had followed him to the bodyguard training program. As they constantly tried to one-up each other throughout the following months, Sakusa’s recognition of their similar personalities snowballed the end of the short-lived crush. _We were too alike,_ he thinks fondly, now. _Both too stern._

But as he always does, Sakusa saw it through to the end, and graduated.

“In high school, yes.”

“That’s great,” says Kita, twisting the brass key in the lock. The door swings open. “I’m very concerned about Atsumu’s safety. It’s great that you know a thing or two about martial arts.”

There’s a faint sound of a piano coming from upstairs. The house is relatively neat, polished, save for the occasional jacket thrown across Eames furniture and the framed picture one inch too lopsided. The weak sunlight, filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows, catches on the large shelf of records, the ticking clock, the broad curving staircase. Sakusa can smell fresh air and sun-warmed wood, the music blanketing the house’s grandeur lulling him to peace.

“Can you hear it? He wrote this song,” Kita says affectionately. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

Sakusa nods.

Kita leads him up the spiral steps. The music is getting louder now, and Sakusa realizes it’s one he hasn’t heard before. He spent the rest of yesterday talking to Komori and paying close attention to all of Miya Atsumu’s hits and albums playing in the background, but he doesn’t remember hearing this one.

And when they get to Atsumu’s room, where Atsumu is at the piano, his eyes soft and a smile on his lips, Sakusa is hit by a sudden wave of anger.

Because the songs he heard yesterday were catchy, good, fun, but this one is simply breathtaking. It reminds him of years in childhood living by the lake, the cicadas calling for the height of summer; transports him to a memory of nights in Ryuzu when tears of the Yugawa river pours from its waterfalls. It’s beautiful. And he’s angry. _I love sharin’ my music with ya,_ Miya Atsumu said. Then why don’t you play this, if something this beautiful can come out of you, why don’t you share this to the world, why do you keep something like this to yourself and just yourself, that’s selfish, aren’t you an artist, because if that’s the case then _I’m not the only one here with the questionable occupation._

.

Sakusa realizes that what he said to Atsumu was silly and unreasonable, driven by egotistical emotion. But after twenty minutes into meeting him, Sakusa doesn’t feel like apologizing.

Atsumu is a brat. A huge fucking, fucking brat. He says whatever comes to mind without considering the consequences, tantalizes whoever he can whenever something doesn’t go his way. Part of Sakusa hopes that Atsumu will cross the line and give him a good excuse to sock him right in the face. It really does present an awfully tempting target, all smug and cocky and out there.

The first three days are filled with hostility, either with their silences full of tension or their conversations full of loathing. Atsumu doesn’t invade his physical personal space, but he pries. _Isn’t privacy something important to you?_ Sakusa wants to snarl. _Something you can understand the need for?_

Apparently not.

On the fourth day, Sakusa reaches his limit and dials a friend.

“He’s insufferable,” he growls into the phone, feeling his entire body tremble with annoyance. “I want to strangle him. I swear I’m gonna go mad after weeks of this. He’s going to give me heart problems. He’s going to _clog my fucking arteries_.”

“Eat some vegetables,” Ushijima advises. “That might help.”

“You think _food_ is the solution to this?”

“I mean. It was for Miya Osamu, wasn’t it?”

“Very funny, you are,” says Sakusa. “You think this must be easy to endure, Wakatoshi-kun, because _you_ don’t have any problems with _your_ client.”

“I got lucky,” says Ushijima. “Tendou is reasonable.”

Sakusa makes a noise of faint disagreement. ‘Reasonable’ isn’t the first word that comes to mind if he wants to describe Tendou Satori. He’ll pass through ‘loud’ and ‘unhinged’ before he reaches that adjective.

“Yes, well,” he sighs. “How is that going?”

“Excellent,” says Ushijima, and Sakusa thinks he can hear a smile. “I think we’ve become very close friends.”

“Good for you,” says Sakusa, genuinely glad. Tendou is a world-famous chocolatier currently residing in Paris; Ushijima had started providing protection services for him for more than a year now, and things are going swimmingly on their end. Apparently they go out for drinks together and have fun together and share Intimate Details with each other.

“I hope you can become friends with Miya Atsumu too,” says Ushijima. “Sometimes it takes time to warm up to someone.”

“This is going to shorten my lifespan,” mutters Sakusa. “But thanks. I suppose all I can keep doing is my job.”

When they say their goodbyes and end the phone call five minutes after, Sakusa knocks his head back against the wall. It really isn’t fair if he starts diverging now into self-pity. He has dealt with awful clients before—never ones that verbally tries his patience, but awful nonetheless—and he can deal with this one. It’s only another unfinished job, after all.

So he wrinkles his nose, straightens up, and walks down to the kitchen.

Something is baking, he notices, inhaling the pleasant aroma of baked sweets as he catches sight of an uncaring mess on the kitchen counter, flour dusting over every kind of silverware. Atsumu stands in the middle of it with his sleeves rolled up, an white apron wrapped around him, covered in uncooked goods. Sakusa stays a distance away, careful not to get anything stuck on him.

Atsumu catches his gaze and grins, humourless. “Who were you talkin’ to, Omi-Omi?”

Sakusa knows the nickname is more intent on getting under his skin than trying to be affable, but he ignores it. “Just a friend.”

“Private, aren’tcha?” says Atsumu. “You’d think that by the fourth day, I’d know more ‘bout you than I do about tadpoles.”

“That’s a weird comparison,” Sakusa doesn’t say. His pride is considerable, but his fear of heart failure is larger. So instead he inhales, the warm aroma of delicious sweets filling his lungs, exhales, and says, “That smells like good pastry,” attempting to be nice. “Are you making apple pie?”

“ _What?_ ” Atsumu turns to him, sounding offended. There’s a smudge of powder on his left cheek. “That’s just rude. This is spaghetti.”

“Wait,” says Sakusa, horrorstruck. “ _You’re making_ _pasta?_ ”

“Obviously,” Atsumu huffs, gesturing widely to the kitchen counter. A closer examination of the contents on it tells Sakusa that it very much is pasta indeed.

“Why the hell does it smell like apple?” says Sakusa, terrified. “What kind of fucked up spaghetti have _you_ been eating?”

Atsumu puts his hands on his hips and frowns, clearly irritated. “It’s parmesan apple spaghetti,” he says venomously. “Maybe—maybe I put too much apple in the—but I haven’t tried Western recipes, and this is my first time cookin’ one. It’s probably really not bad, if you wanna try—”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Sakusa says quickly and, hoping to soften the blow, adds, “thanks.”

But Atsumu gets the subtle hint, because his expression is clouding. “Alright,” he says, tone sharper than a serpent’s tooth. “Then if you can fuckin’ shut up and let me be, I will kindly refrain myself from throwin’ this rolling pin at you, stupid asshole.”

But Sakusa ends up having to dodge an empty can of tomato sauce thrown at him, anyway.

He inhales. It’s alright. It’s alright. Just another unfinished job. If Kita can look at this devil-child, spawn of Satan in the face and call him a sweet boy, then maybe there’s hope.

.

And there is.

The day Atsumu goes drinking—the eighth day—something shifts.

Atsumu is infuriating, incorrigible, incomprehensible, but Sakusa realizes that at least he apologizes when he needs to. Even if it ends with _How was I supposed to know you're not cryin’ in a corner about it_.

Sakusa also senses, from the way Atsumu abruptly left the bar even though nothing was transparently wrong, that the early end of the night had something to do with him. Sakusa doesn’t take kindly to people feeling sorry for him—emotion founded or not—but the way Atsumu treats him is nowhere near pity. It’s relieving, in a way.

And when Atsumu laughs that night and falls asleep to the tune of his own song, Sakusa thought it might have been a little endearing. Endearing to the point that tucking him in felt like second nature.

The next morning, Atsumu smiles at him, for the first time without any malice.

Sakusa doesn’t change his opinions about someone that quickly, however, given his cautious nature. And neither, it seems, does Atsumu. The atmosphere around them in the weeks following that evening is easier, but marginally. Sakusa still finds him to be an insufferable twat, Atsumu still calls him an annoying scrub, and they bicker like children that has not outgrown their teenage years, but at least they are merely getting on each other’s nerves as opposed to sabotaging one another’s mental health.

 _It’s a progressive step towards civility_ , Sakusa thinks proudly, as he trails behind Atsumu towards the dressing room backstage, the air conditioner cooling his skin.

Atsumu had just finished a talk show, the interview ending in cheers and idolizing applause. Sakusa, watching the whole thing unfold from backstage, noted that Atsumu is a charismatic, eloquent speaker. He can hold the room’s breath in his mouth, swaying their emotions from eager to entertained, and releases it all into the audience’s final whooping squeals of adoration. It’s impressive, if not somewhat diplomatic.

“So, Omi-Omi,” Atsumu says, waving amicably at one of the backstage technicians, “wasn’t I great out there?”

Sakusa sighs. “You were charming,” he admits, the compliment like sand on his tongue.

Atsumu laughs. “You look like you’re gonna gag,” he says. “Wanna say some more of that? Like, _Miya you are an absolute treasure of a human being,_ or, _Miya you are strong and capable and don’t need no bodyguard to protect you from the barbarity of violent stalkers._ ” He cups his ear. “C’mon, lemme hear it.”

“You really can be quite hilarious sometimes,” says Sakusa.

“It’s part of the charm,” says Atsumu. “Did Kita-san already leave?”

“Halfway through the show. He wanted to get to the car wash before his appointment.”

“I guess that means,” Atsumu begins to say, but he’s cut off by the sudden stomping sound of footsteps.

“ _MIYA ATSUMU!_ ” comes a piercing scream behind them. “YOU NARCISSISTIC SON OF A BITCH!”

Atsumu yelps in surprise. Sakusa turns. A man is running towards them amidst shouts of warning from afar, black cap shielding the top half of his eyes, his teeth baring into a snarl.

Sakusa reacts by instinct, polished from years of training. He kicks one of the man’s feet off-balance, and at the same time grabs both his elbows, twisting them behind him and knocking him to his knees. His outraged struggles only tightens Sakusa’s grip.

“God, I’m so sorry, I should’ve been able to stop him!” yells one of the backstage managers, sprinting towards them. The man is thrashing on the ground, shouting vaguely colourful expletives at how conceited all celebrities are. “He ran so fast!”

“Don’t worry,” says Sakusa, his iron hold firm. “He’s not holding a weapon.”

“I’m so sorry!” she repeats, distressed. Sakusa grunts as his nails dig into the man’s arm in the latter’s attempts to escape; this much pressure of a human body through gloves is a sensation he hasn’t felt in a long time.

A few helpers rush over. They manage to pry the man away, his angry flails and shouts fading into the background as they disappear around the corner.

That isn’t the person sending the death threats, Sakusa decides, judging from the slander directed at celebrities in general instead of Atsumu alone. It somehow is also too obvious and moronic. Who goes in with the premeditated intent to attack without a weapon?

When Sakusa turns back to check in, Atsumu’s mouth is open.

“Well,” Atsumu says, then clears his throat. “You looked kinda cool there.”

“ _That’s_ what you’re thinking about?” Sakusa says, flabbergasted.

“I know that’s not who we’re lookin’ for,” Atsumu confirms. “But the way you pinned him down, though.” He whistles.

“Your priorities are skewed.”

“C’mon. D’ya know how many people have charged at me?” says Atsumu. “Especially the shoutin’ ones. It’s become quite the norm.”

“Huh.” Sakusa smirks, knowing it’s hidden behind the mask. “Then was that a squeak I heard from you earlier,” he teases, “or are you ‘strong and capable and don’t need no bodyguard’?”

Atsumu’s cheeks go pink.

“You're annoyin’,” he says, then whips around and heads into the dressing room. Sakusa smiles to himself and follows suit.

There are mirrors lined on two opposite walls in the room, decorated on its perimeters with light bulbs of bright yellow. Clothes are stacked on a hanger in the corner, bottles of cosmetics scattered on the tables. Sakusa makes out a faint scent of perfume mixed in with vanilla air freshener.

Atsumu sits on one of the sofas (no, not sit; _lounge_ ), his thumb and forefinger circled around a steamy coffee mug. The clock’s second hand dutifully ticks on the wall, marking the end of an afternoon. Atsumu takes a sip.

“Y’know,” he says, gulping down coffee that Sakusa can smell even from here. “You’re kinda like this tear on the couch. Like, jiggle jiggle scritch scritch—only, y’know, you.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Sakusa says, incredulous.

“This tear has been here for a while, I’ve noticed,” says Atsumu. He’s playing with a small flap of hard leather that had been torn from the edge of the sofa, revealing the mass of beige padding inside. He pulls at it, tugs, but all that does is lengthen the tear on both its sides. Sakusa’s eyes twitch.

“You’re annoying like this tear on the couch is annoying,” Atsumu continues, but good-naturedly. “Look at it. It’s always there, and it always just freakin’ pokes at ya, and it’s such an eyesore.”

“Then look away,” says Sakusa, “or ask somebody to fix it. I didn’t think problem-solving was your forte, but this is a whole new level of non-issue.”

“I don’t think I can get _you_ fixed, Omi-Omi,” Atsumu says, now peering at himself in the mirror and adjusting the part of his hair. “You missed the point of my metaphor.”

“You mean simile.”

“Simile bimile,” says Atsumu. Sakusa has never met someone who spouts so much gibberish. Nor has he met someone whose fingers seem so incapable of being still: one of Atsumu’s hands has returned to absentmindedly tug at the tear. “Huh. Bein’ a lyricist, I should’ve known that. How does my hair look?”

“Like hair,” says Sakusa. “Can you stop pulling at the leather already? It’s making my skin crawl.”

Atsumu stops. He slouches against the backrest, pouting. It reminds Sakusa jocosely of a child deprived of its toy.

Then something dawns over Atsumu’s face. As he looks up at Sakusa and beams, rather evilly, Sakusa instinctively takes a step back.

“I know what might make your skin crawl,” says Atsumu, shooting up from the sofa. “Come, we’re goin’ for a drive.”

“Are we?” says Sakusa, uncertain. “Do we have to?”

Atsumu winks. “You’re in the passenger seat, this time.”

Atsumu is a surprisingly pleasant driver. In the middle of Tokyo’s heavy traffic and road construction, amidst the honking and noises and the racket of the busy streets, he keeps patience and respects the rights of others; accelerating when he needs to, signalling with enough forewarning. Sakusa has never painted him to be an irresponsible driver, but he did expect some road rage. Watching Atsumu swerve and check behind his shoulder catches Sakusa slightly off guard.

“Surprised?” says Atsumu.

Sakusa blinks. “Wait,” he says. “You’re not just driving this cleanly for the shock factor, are you?”

“Who’s to say,” says Atsumu cheerfully. “I like to be unpredictable.”

“I don’t,” says Sakusa, and, for the fourth time, “At least tell me where we’re going.”

Atsumu grins, devilish. “I can keep secrets too, y’know.” 

“Suspense is not attractive, if that’s what you think.”

“Then what’s attractive to you?”

Sakusa glances over. Atsumu has his eyes on the road, an amused smile on his lips. His tone was light, void of flirtatious insinuation, but Sakusa feels odd nonetheless.

He opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, Atsumu’s hand quickly reaches up to twist the rearview mirror to the center. “Oh, look,” he groans. “We have company.”

Sakusa straightens and peers behind his shoulder. A black Nissan is tailing after them, the man on the passenger side holding up an SLR camera, vaguely visible through the grey tinted windshield.

The overbearing presence of paparazzi is nothing new. A month into working for Miya Atsumu and Sakusa has gotten the hang of how to deal with them. They’re unrelenting, once the cameras are out. Cutting their tail proves to be almost impossible, especially in a city as big and crowded as Tokyo. The best thing to do with minimal trouble, he learned, is to let them follow you to whatever your destination is, get out, and have your bodyguard shield you from their soliciting lenses.

“We’re gonna lose ‘em,” says Atsumu.

“I’m sorry,” says Sakusa, “what?”

Atsumu steps on the gas pedal. The car lurches forward, the sudden acceleration making Sakusa’s stomach gymnastic.

“Oh, no,” says Sakusa fervently, gripping the roof handle, “no no no.”

“C’mon, we’re barely over the speed limit,” says Atsumu, not slowing.

“But we _are_ over,” Sakusa yelps.

The traffic lights ahead turn yellow. Sakusa feels a nauseous wave of apprehension churn in his stomach, knowing what comes next: Atsumu accelerates and speeds through the intersection, fast and dreadful, the sound of objects zooming past them loud. 

Sakusa frantically glances at the wing mirror. The Nissan is further, but gaining and still on their heels.

“Persistent bastards,” Atsumu grumbles.

“You know what’s attractive to me?” Sakusa hisses. “People who are safe drivers. People who _aren’t the reason for my death_.”

“Let me concentrate,” Atsumu snaps.

There are only six other cars on both lanes, Sakusa counts, evident of their approach towards the outskirts of Tokyo. His nerves are on high alert, the panic of an impending accident rising in his throat. He hates losing control. Absolutely despises it. It’s the entire reason why he likes things a certain way, why he can’t stand any germs on his body, why he pays proper care and attention to everything, why he always finishes what he starts. Atsumu being behind the wheels slips him of all the control he has; rings all the red alarm bells in his head.

“Fuck you, Miya,” he growls.

“Later!” Atsumu says.

The traffic lights are already yellow as they near the next four-way street. Atsumu gives the car another boost; as they accelerate halfway through the intersection, the lights blink red. A long, warning honk blares at them on the right.

Sakusa sees through the wing mirror that the Nissan has stopped, caught by the red lights, its figure receding in the distance. But before he can say anything, the car lurches sickeningly to the right, onto the side road. Sakusa almost hits the door.

“We have to lose ‘em completely,” Atsumu explains.

“That was dangerous!” Sakusa says, angry, as Atsumu makes a few more unpredictable turns. “Did you think that was cool? You can’t just _do_ that! You’re making these death threats useless!”

“This is the first time I’ve heard you raise your voice,” says Atsumu, looking mildly apologetic. “It wasn’t that bad though! I made sure we were on a less crowded street.”

“My fucking lifespan,” Sakusa mutters, wishing he were the one in Paris.

As Atsumu continues driving, Sakusa lectures him a few more times for good measure, his heart thankfully calming with every minute. _Irresponsible driving is not funny,_ he scolds furiously, wondering if this is what Kita feels like. Atsumu just chortles and apologizes, sounding the least bit regretful. Kita really is a man with saintly patience.

The rest of the car drive is smoother.

After a few long streets, the buildings begin to shrink down to several stories and are eventually replaced by nature, the paths narrowed into unmarked lanes. Fields of grass start to wash up on each side of the road like tides of green. They’re getting away from the city and driving uphill, Sakusa realizes, staring at the cloudless blue sky. He takes in the inclining landscape, the appearances of tall trees colouring the scene in every hue from damp grass to deep forest pools. They go further and further up, until leaves tumble to the undergrowth.

“We’re here,” says Atsumu, stopping at last.

Sakusa turns to look at him. Atsumu is smiling, a twinkle of an inside joke in his eyes.

“Sometimes I go here when I’m in a good mood,” he adds, when they climb out of the car. And the view, unfiltered through the car windows, unfurls before them like a dream.

They’re at the top of a hill, and what lies before them is dusk. The sun is somewhere between orange and yellow, staining the horizon champagne and bringing purple to the vastness of the sky. The city is miles away in front of them. From an overlooking distance, Tokyo seems silent: simply a maze of structures and blinking lights that you can hold snug in your arms.

Sakusa leans back on the car, letting the sun bask him heavy with warmth. Sunsets are glorious, and he loves them, but they always give him this looming feeling of things long lost. There’s a quiet urgency in sunsets, he thinks, watching the ball of gas fire tip over the edge of the world. As if it’s the last time you’ll ever see it sink, this sun of yore, and you only have that precious slice of time to do whatever it is you’re meant to do before it all ends. 

“So,” Atsumu says, “does this make your skin crawl?”

Sakusa looks at him. Atsumu is grinning, a triumphant expression on his face. A brisk wind whistles through his hair, lifting the locks golden by sun, and passes through to stir the tree leaves somewhere behind them restless.

Something pulls at Sakusa. From nowhere, he blurts out, “I love listening to your music.”

Atsumu’s eyes widen, visibly surprised. He stares at Sakusa, searching for any signs of falsity.

And then he laughs, the sound carefree and pure. Sakusa feels drunk. He watches Atsumu, transfixed, as the sunlight catches on Atsumu’s hair, his cheeks, the curve of his shoulders, his amber-brown eyes.

The unrest comes back to Sakusa softly, quietly. And for a moment, just for a moment, time stops moving.

Because he is careful. Sakusa has slowly carved out a life from just enough—waste not want not, safe with the truth that there is nothing he yearns for—but Atsumu is different. Diligent and a perfectionist, but his blood runs hot. Atsumu lives like he’s speeding down a highway, radio music blasting through the windows rolled down, hasty and reckless, hungry to feel the wind. Atsumu lives like twenty-four is as old as he’ll ever get.

.


	4. Sakusa

Atsumu starts playing for him every day.

It begins when Atsumu says, eager, “I don’t think I’ve played the violin for ya,” the night they get back from the hill. Sakusa stands by the doorway of Atsumu’s room and listens as everything becomes sound—just sound—all sound. A world of song made from the stretch of a bow against four main strings of a wood box. Sakusa feels the notes pull at him like tides to the moon, burning the sight of Atsumu’s head on the violin into his wall of memories.

 _Can you hear it?_ echoes Kita’s voice, distant. _He wrote this song. It’s amazing, isn’t it?_

When he finishes, Atsumu looks at him.

“Was it okay?” he asks, expectant.

“No,” says Sakusa, as honestly as possible. “No, I thought it was brilliant.”

And Atsumu smiles like the sunrise.

They lapse, afterwards, into a routine. The timing and instruments are volatile, but Atsumu would play something for him every day without fail. Even if it lasts less than thirty seconds.

Sometimes they are good, and sometimes they aren’t; Sakusa always tells him so. Sometimes the notes are awkwardly placed together. Sometimes Atsumu sings along—mostly incoherent, unformed words (“ _I always construct the melody first, and then write the lyrics after”_ ). Sometimes it’s played passionately, other times softly, other times sadly; but never has Sakusa minded, for these are Atsumu’s and he should do with them what he would.

.

Sakusa picks up after three rings.

“Kiyoomi!” Komori yips through the phone. “I just wanted to check in with you. How’s it going?”

“It’s four in the morning,” Sakusa says groggily through the blurry haze of sleep. “Are you dying, or should I yell at you?”

“Oh, gosh, sorry!” says Komori. “I completely—I’m in France right now, I’m sorry, I completely forgot—”

“Ah, right,” says Sakusa, recalling a conversation he had with his mother about how his cousin had gone and travelled to Europe. _I wish I can come to France,_ she exclaimed, stars in her eyes, _it’s beautiful there, sweetheart_ , and had launched herself into an aggravatingly long description of the mystical canyons of Gorges du Verdon. Sakusa blinks the sleep away now, the darkness of his room—Atsumu’s guest room—turning slowly into discernible shapes, hauling him away from the muzzy recollection.

“How is it there?” he says.

“Really, I can hang up and let you sleep—”

“It’s fine,” Sakusa says. Irritated though he is, it’s been a while since he’s spoken to Komori. “Miya doesn’t wake up early on Fridays, anyway.”

“Oh, yes, I wanted to call to check in on you about that,” says Komori. “The last time we talked, you hated each other’s guts.”

“I don’t feel like committing seppuku around him now,” says Sakusa. A gross understatement. Being around each other feels natural these days. The jabs and bickering are there, sure—Sakusa doesn’t think that will ever stop and doesn’t quite need them to—but staying by Atsumu’s side has been easy. A choreless necessity, almost, that he occasionally forgets he’s working.

Komori laughs. “That’s great to hear. He’s not getting on your nerves anymore?”

 _In a different way, he is,_ but Sakusa nods. Then remembers that Komori can’t see him.

“It’s fine now,” he reassures. “But I need to sleep. Tell me about France.”

Komori laughs again. “How rude,” he says. “It’s so nice here. Gimme a sec—I’ll send you pictures. Your mom has always wanted to go, hasn’t she?”

“Yeah,” says Sakusa. “Made any friends?”

The answer is expected, because Komori is sweet like that.

“Oh, I have!” he says, excitement evident. “I have to tell you—I met this Japanese guy when I took the train to the nearby countries. He was fishing for marlins off the coast of Italy. Isn’t that _awesome_? You should’ve seen him—he wears this shirt that says _One Man Army_. ‘I’ll travel across the world,’ he said, ‘as far as it can take me.’ Europe is such a pretty place to be in, Kiyoomi. There are mountains in one spot, and then the ocean is just half an hour away, and there are fields, and lakes, and canyons, beaches and snow and—and villages full of flowers. God, you can take the train anywhere. Just zip, and you’re there.”

.

_Miya would like that_ , he thinks.

All the things Komori told him. The cypress path stretching until it reaches the green horizon of Tuscany, the peaks of the Alps sculpted by raindrops through eons—Atsumu would like that, if driving up a hill that overlooks Tokyo is considered his sight to see.

 _And maybe I’d like to see it with him_ , Sakusa thinks, a susurration.

But now he sits at a table in the corner of Atsumu’s room, fork and knife in hand ready to slice the cheesecake on his plate.

“Gnaaugh,” Atsumu groans, his hair unruly in his hands.

“Calm down,” says Sakusa.

“ _Gnaaugh,_ ” Atsumu groans louder. “I don’t know how to do this!”

Atsumu is sitting at the piano with his elbows on the keys, his head hung in a silent admission of defeat. 

Sakusa sighs. It has been an hour of this. He already knows that talent never comes without hard work, but writing music really proves to be an insurmountable task more often than he expects. Sakusa knows next to nothing about being a musician, but Atsumu’s display of frustration is theatrical enough for him to understand the struggles of translating feelings into notes.

“Can’t you ask for help?” he suggests.

Atsumu looks like he’s just been asked to commit murder.

“Alright then,” says Sakusa. In a way, he understands. For people as proud as they are, asking for help can feel a lot like giving up.

“I mean, okay, I _know_ what it’s supposed to feel like,” Atsumu repeats, for probably the twelfth time. “I know what it—like, it’s—but I can’t, and I’ve been tryin’, and tryin’—Omi-kun, how the fuck do I do this?!” 

“I’m not a songwriter,” Sakusa points out, because _Just play_ sounds more unhelpful.

Atsumu thumps his head on the piano, the dissonant sounds of several consecutive keys ringing in the air. “I hate this,” he whimpers. “I’ve been at this for an hour, didja know? And nothin’! Nada!”

“I know,” says Sakusa, carefully dissecting his cheesecake into even pieces, “I was with you the full hour.”

“ _Arggh_ ,” says Atsumu. “D’ya always do that, by the way? Eat like you’re conducting an autopsy?”

“You’re attacking the way I dine now?” says Sakusa. “Look, just take a break. It clearly has been frustrating.”

“That’ll only delay my pain.” Atsumu sighs, and goes back to stare at his empty music sheet.

Sakusa has never fully realized how intricately complicated Atsumu’s job is. It appears to often be a milestone, to be able to put thoughts and feelings into something intangible, something only ears can reach, something that can move people with only the concatenation of seven notes and their intervals of tones. Compared to this, Sakusa’s job is more technicality. You either succeed in protecting your client on a particular given day at a particular given time, or you don’t, and the result of it depends entirely on training and luck. Perhaps the application is only to him, but there is never a moment where he feels blocked with a personal boulder too high to pass; never has he felt untalented. With the added plights of fame, Sakusa doesn’t know if he would be able to withstand being a singer.

The question slips from his brain to his mouth, unfiltered.

“Have you ever thought of quitting?”

Sakusa half-expected there to be additional stress and doubt on Atsumu’s state of frustration, but it doesn’t take any hesitation. Atsumu just smiles, not with his eyes, and sends him a look that basically boils down to: _Really, now._

The room falls silent, save for the piano’s echoes, as Atsumu gets back to work. Sakusa sits and watches, the cheesecake gradually disappearing into crumbs.

It takes a full other hour, but in the end something clicks. Atsumu plays a few notes, a few continuous sounds, and then freezes. There is a long moment of important silence before he slowly inhales, tentatively plays the same melody again, and his breath catches.

 _I got it,_ his expression screams. _I did it._

Sakusa wants to say something, but recognizes that the moment doesn’t belong to him.

He listens.

.

It’s Tuesday night.

Atsumu, elated that he had finally broken through the song-writing block that he dramatically claimed was giving him the nightmare of his life, had immediately called his friends to grab a few drinks. Sakusa drove him to Black Jackals, doubtful that anyone would show up at nine on a weeknight for some alcohol indulgence, but to his astonishment (and dismay), Bokuto and Hinata were already there.

Sakusa is thankful that there aren’t a lot of people around tonight. He has always hated clubs. There is too much noise—unnaturally loud conversations, speakers roaring whatever is trendy at the time—and too many people intentionally touching each other. Not to mention the overwhelming stench of hard liquor permeating the air, engulfing him as if trying to get him drunk through smell alone. It’s revolting.

Tuesday night at Black Jackals, fortunately, only consists of the faint smell of alcohol and much less deafening music—a direct consequence of drastically fewer customers.

Atsumu, Hinata, and Bokuto are sitting at one side of the bar, animatedly chattering, each with a cocktail in front of them. Sakusa stands on the other side, hands in his pockets, a safe distance away with no one crowding around him.

“It’s kind of fascinating,” he says. “Next to Bokuto and Hinata, Miya looks like the calm and mature one.”

Akaashi—who is standing inside the bar counter, wiping a tall glass down with a towel—smiles. “Calm, yes. But he may be the least mature one.”

Sakusa frowns at Hinata and Bokuto, zipping his stare back and forth between the raucously loudness of the two—from their gesticulations to their volumes to their hair—like they were born without shame, without the imposition of maturity forcing shame upon them.

Akaashi must have caught Sakusa’s dubious look, because he chuckles. “Miya-san picks childish fights. Koutarou and Hinata don’t.”

“Oh, well, yes,” says Sakusa, “ _that,_ I notice.”

“You’ve heard of Kageyama, then?”

 _Kageyama._ Sakusa racks through his brain and stumbles on the familiarity of the name. Right. Kageyama Tobio, 23 years old, also a singer. _Hinata and Kageyama,_ he remembers a headline from years ago displaying, although he can’t recall whether or not that was referring to a romantic or business partnership. Apparently they were a duo, and then they disbanded after three years, and then reunited to be a duo again, and then disbanded, and honestly Sakusa doesn’t even know.

“Yes,” he says.

“They’ve always been competitive with each other,” says Akaashi. “Kageyama and Miya-san, I mean. Miya-san called him a goody-two-shoes not long ago, knowing it’d provoke him, and they’ve been trying to one-up each other ever since. It’s a little funny to watch.”

Sakusa can never quite understand it. Going about your life doing whatever the hell it is you want without caring for others’ opinions is one thing, but going out of your way to intentionally goad and elicit displeasure out of people is entirely different thing altogether. It’s mystifying. Sakusa stumbles upon being a jerk himself sometimes, but it’s always by way of honesty; Atsumu dives head-first into it with full intent, seemingly because he can.

“You both seem to have become friends,” says Akaashi.

“What,” says Sakusa. “Oh. Not really.”

Akaashi stares at him. Sakusa doesn’t surely know, but can _definitely_ sense that Akaashi is logically running through numerous possibilities of—of something—in a millisecond.

“What?” Sakusa snaps, feeling impatient and a little bit annoyed.

Akaashi tilts his head. “Miya-san hasn’t been hooking up with anyone lately.”

The realization hits Sakusa somewhere below his diaphragm, sending white-hot waves of—what, panic? Is that what this is? Or maybe it’s dread, because it also feels an awful lot like cold rocks settling at the bottom of his stomach.

It’s true. He has completely forgotten. Atsumu hasn’t been hooking up with anyone lately. It was just once, Sakusa remembers; once—a few days after the first night at Black Jackals, after Sakusa had found out that Atsumu was gay—that Atsumu had brought someone home. Sakusa had merely slept with his headphones on that night, but it was too early then for him to feel anything past mild apathy towards the situation. But now…

“Does he,” Sakusa says, “did he used to do that a lot?”

“That’s a bit subjective,” says Akaashi, “but yes, I suppose? It’s just hard to keep people around when cameras are on you all the time. I think that’s why Miya-san only really has flings. Whenever things get a bit serious, people hound on both him and the person he’s seeing, and it gets exhausting. He always ends up cutting ties with them. Koutarou and I hated seeing that.”

Sakusa turns to look at Atsumu. Atsumu, who is wrapping an arm around Hinata and laughing at something Bokuto said. Atsumu, who looks damn near sultry under the dim bar lights, who wears his heart on his sleeve and doesn’t take good care of anything but his fingers. Atsumu, with his stupid soft hair and blasé grin, cocksure and cheerful and melodramatic and everything Sakusa used to detest. In spite of it all, to imagine that someone else can run their hands over his body, can caress his cheek and put their mouth on his... It’s riling up a churning motion in the pit of Sakusa’s stomach, sending unpleasant heat over his chest.

And that’s ridiculous, isn’t it, because they are not—

_He always ends up cutting ties with them._

Sakusa grips the phone in his pocket tight, if only to feel something solid.

When he turns back, Akaashi is staring at him, a curious look on his face.

“I can see that you’re good friends, Sakusa-san,” he says. “Miya-san gets propositioned a lot, but if it’s from y—”

“We’re not friends,” Sakusa cuts in.

But the gentle look on Akaashi’s face tells him Akaashi doesn’t believe it.

It’s midnight when Atsumu stands, stretches, puts on his cap, and declares that he will be leaving.

“How about a shot for the road, Omi-Omi,” he cheers across the bar, one hand cupped to his face. “Can you get 'im a drink, Keiji-kun?”

“Aren’t I the driver,” says Sakusa.

“Isn’t he the driver?” says Akaashi, at the same time.

“One shot ain’t gonna get your BAC up that high!”

Akaashi turns to Sakusa. “I can slip you some water disguised as vodka,” he offers in a whisper.

“He’s planning something,” shouts Bokuto, pointing. “I know that stance!”

“It’s fine,” says Sakusa, and then, to Atsumu: “We’re leaving, idiot.”

Atsumu pouts. “You’re so uptight.”

“If I crash the car and you die, how will I get paid?”

Atsumu tries, unsuccessfully, to land a kick on him for that.

They walk through the noise and exit the club, where the blinking colourful lights of the Tokyo streets are more blinding than the dimly lit hues inside. A blast of fresh, cool October air washes over them like they’ve resurfaced. Sakusa breathes in despite the mask tight on his face.

“Whaaaa,” Atsumu calls out, arms flung wildly in the air. “Best. Night. Ever!”

“You say that about a lot of nights,” says Sakusa.

Atsumu sends him a lewd smile. But with a cap on his head (as if that’s sufficient for disguise), Sakusa decides that he just looks rather ridiculous instead.

“Leave the car,” says Atsumu. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

There is never really any choice. Sakusa trails, one step behind him, as Atsumu practically strides along the sidewalk, his back straight, shoulders set, hands in his pockets as he treads like there isn’t a damn thing in the world he’s afraid of. It sort of makes Sakusa want to grab him by the collar and yank.

“Tell me something,” Atsumu says, slowing down so that they’re almost side-by-side.

“What?”

“You’re always so prickly and clammy about everythin’, Omi-Omi,” says Atsumu. “Tell me a secret.”

Sakusa scowls. “You don’t insult someone and then ask them to confide in you.”

“That wasn’t an insult,” says Atsumu, “it was an observation. You’re prickly like a sea urchin, y’know. All spiny and stingy. Even your hair is black and messy and sticks out everywhere, like sea urchins do.”

“I don’t see how that’s not an insult,” says Sakusa. “Jesus Christ.”

“Well, if you tell me a secret, I’ll stop talkin’.” Atsumu wags his eyebrows.

“You’re really annoying,” says Sakusa. “Deeply annoying.”

“Not a secret.”

Someday, Sakusa thinks, he would like to duct tape Atsumu’s mouth and leave him locked inside a soundproof room. But now he considers his options and, oh what the hell, goes with, “I can’t perform CPR.”

Atsumu looks at him.

“I can’t perform CPR,” Sakusa continues, “because the last time I tried, I went to the washroom and vomited.”

Atsumu stares at him, and continues staring for so long that Sakusa starts to get worried that he’s having a stroke. Sakusa steps forward, one hand reaching out, and it’s then that Atsumu bursts out laughing.

Sakusa reels backwards slightly, shocked and a bit offended. Atsumu doubles over, dying with laughter until tears start to form in his eyes.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” Sakusa says, more uncertain than anything.

“I’m sorry,” Atsumu wheezes, “I—you made it seem like it was such a traumatizin’ thing, the first time I brought it up, and it’s just—that you—holy shit, Omi,” and is unable to coherently end the sentence.

“Well, it wasn’t _enjoyable_ ,” Sakusa snaps, fully offended now. “It took a lot of paperwork and convincing to let the administrators allow me to bypass that stage of the—”

Atsumu howls with laughter again, his gasps for air short and desperate. Sakusa glares at him, as if a death stare can stop Atsumu from finding the whole stressful ordeal amusing. It really _did_ take a lot of paperwork and convincing and trouble; Sakusa remembers the coach of his bodyguard training course having to speak to his superiors about how _yes, it’s entirely plausible for someone else to be present at the scene to perform CPR with Sakusa Kiyoomi’s instructions, yes, it’s all right to overlook this minor inconvenience._ Sakusa also remembers feeling distressed that placing his mouth on an unconscious stranger is pretty much impossible for him, remembers how Ushijima had to reassure him that everything would be fine…

All right. In retrospect, maybe it was a little funny.

“You're smiling,” says Atsumu, wiping away a tear.

“Am I,” says Sakusa. “You should get your eyesight checked.”

“You do that thing with your eyes when you’re smiling,” says Atsumu. “I see it!”

Sakusa truly hates it when Atsumu is right. “You’re an asshole.”

“I’m sorry,” says Atsumu, sounding only half-apologetic, “but you hafta know how hilarious that was. Did anyone laugh?”

“No, because no one I knew was a piece of shit.”

Atsumu opens his mouth to say something, but then the sky splits open above them, and relentless rain pours down like the heavens are trying to drown them. There isn’t the slightest warning. Sakusa blinks, surprised, and is soaked through in a matter of seconds.

“Shit.” He raises his voice over the thundering of rain, so thick he almost can’t see, “It didn’t say it was going to rain on the news today.”

“You check the _weather_ report?” says Atsumu.

“You _don’t?”_ says Sakusa, astounded, but shakes his head and tries to think. His clothes are rapidly sticking to him, wet and drenched and all too uncomfortable, and water is threatening to seep into his shoes. They’re in a familiar neighbourhood, he realizes fast, recognizing the lamplights, the fire hydrants, the predictable corners where the sidewalks curve.

He grabs Atsumu by the arm and starts to run, the water on the ground splashing everywhere around them.

“Where are we going,” Atsumu yells, but it isn’t long before they arrive at the entrance of an apartment building a block away, the overhanging ceiling giving them shelter.

Sakusa lets go and fumbles inside his pockets. Atsumu pants, his hands on his knees.

“Ah,” says Atsumu, “yeah, I guess we can wait here for the rain to—”

“Actually,” says Sakusa, “this is my apartment building.”

Atsumu cranes his neck up to blink at him, eyes wide. “It is?”

Then, before the affirmation can reach his ears, Atsumu stands and straightens up, and Sakusa almost bites his tongue off.

The rain had soaked Atsumu through and through—soaking his white shirt transparent, the stretches of it clinging to his body like sin. Somewhere along the way his cap had fallen, so now Atsumu’s hair is plastered to his forehead, his cheeks flushed pink from running, the muscles on him wet with dripping water. Sakusa feels his own body react, hot and strained and difficult, because if he just trails the trickles of rain down from Atsumu’s neck to his chest to his navel to his pants, where it’s also clinging to the curve of his—

Sakusa turns away.

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely, and presses his key to the intercom with much more force than necessary.

Fuck this.

They take the elevator up to Sakusa’s apartment and enters, drying their feet off on the front door carpet. Sakusa—acutely aware of every movement he makes—rummages through his closet, pulls out two towels, hands one to Atsumu, and quickly disappears into the bathroom.

As the door slams shut, Sakusa glares, hard and harbouring, at the mirror, at his reflection where rain has dampened. He grips the edge of the sink, digging.

_He always ends up cutting ties with them._

Would Atsumu push him away? Never mind the flirtatious teasing that Sakusa allows himself to read as want, would Atsumu push him away just like he did all the others, before anything could even start, if Sakusa echoes everything he knows he feels?

_He always ends up cutting ties with them._

And that’s the entire problem, isn’t it? It’s not about ignoring the longing arising in his veins, because Sakusa isn’t very good at lying to himself. It’s not about dismissing the crackle smell of lightning between them real enough to burn him. It’s only that if anything—if _anything_ between them goes further than professionalism, there is a limit to how far they can go, how long he can stay—a countdown timer chiming the moment Sakusa tries to reach past what’s safe for him to want.

He shoves the towel in his face.

 _Don’t do this now,_ he tells himself. _Don’t you do this now._

So, with the perfunctory motion of someone who has trained himself to treat everything through lenses of logic, he strips off the wet suit, washes up, dries himself, and dons freshly warmed clothes.

And when he gets out of the bathroom, Atsumu is lying across the couch, nestled in Sakusa’s grey bathrobe. His hands are clasped behind his head, his mouth pulled upwards into a cheeky grin. The apartment is lit with a single lamp between the couch and window, but it’s enough for Sakusa to see that Atsumu’s legs are bare, the lines of his collarbone uncovered, his hair still damp.

It’s unnerving to have Atsumu over to his home, this place he returns to for comfort, but it’s a strange tickle now instead of the usual itch. And with Atsumu huddled inside his robe— _his_ —Sakusa feels vaguely tilted, a warmth rippling in the center of his body.

“Your bathrobe is warm and dry,” Atsumu explains gracelessly.

Sakusa inhales, the scent of home making everything seem less bizarre. “Made yourself at home, I see.”

“Nice to see you without the mask on, finally,” says Atsumu. “Hello there.”

“Shove over,” Sakusa says, and makes his way over to the couch, next to where Atsumu’s head lies. It isn’t until he sits that he realizes his legs have been sore, exhausted from a long night of standing.

“Lend me your lap,” Atsumu says.

“No.”

But Atsumu inches upwards and rests his head on Sakusa’s thigh anyway. Even when it’s through the fabric of his pants, the touch sends a tingle through his worn-out leg, down to his toes and up to his groin. Sakusa frantically, silently forces it down—tries _very_ hard to combat arousal with sheer willpower.

“You’re not pushin’ me away,” Atsumu comments.

“Unlike you, my hospitality is boundless,” Sakusa says dryly. “Your head is also very heavy. That can’t be the brains.”

“I’ll punch you in the face one day when I’m less sleepy,” says Atsumu, opting for the middle finger. He yawns. “This is such an Omi-Omi apartment. It’s spotless.”

The rain falls long and heavy outside; far lighter than the torrential downpour they were under earlier, but no less a waterfall. Sakusa listens to the drizzle on the window pane, _pitter-patter, pitter-patter_ , and wonders if there’s any chance morning won’t come.

Unthinkingly, uncharacteristically, he reaches out and cards his fingers through Atsumu’s hair, lightly rubbing his scalp. Which—he realizes just a moment after—is the absolute worst thing he could possibly do.

“Oh,” Atsumu moans, “god, don’t stop.”

Sakusa’s brain nearly shuts down. “I’m going to stop,” he says quickly, because any more and he will hurl himself out the window. It’s already taking all the self-control he can muster just to keep his legs steady.

Atsumu lifts his chin and looks up. Comprehension immediately dawns on Sakusa that Atsumu had done that on purpose, had tried to provoke him intentionally, because he’s _smirking,_ the bastard. “What,” Atsumu says cheerily, “the noises I made were too much for ya?”

“You’re shameless,” Sakusa says crossly. “Be quiet.” 

“I’m just lettin’ you know how good this feels,” says Atsumu innocently. “Nothing wrong with being direct, right? I’m just communicatin’ my feelings.”

“I could’ve sworn you were re-enacting porn.” 

“I just haven’t had people massage my head in so long,” says Atsumu. “Well, at least not _this_ hea—”

Sakusa pulls on his hair—a tug hard enough to move but not enough to hurt, until Atsumu’s neck cranes all the way up—and leans down slightly. “For fuck’s sake, Miya,” he growls. “ _Shut up_.”

Atsumu shuts up, lips pulled into a thin line. His eyes are brighter than ever, more amber than usual, and it seems like he’s both holding his breath and trying to breathe at the same time. Sakusa is sharply aware of the exposed skin of Atsumu’s throat, of the uneasy shift in Atsumu’s legs, the locks of hair balled in his own fists, and the warm weight of Atsumu’s head on his lap. Too near for comfort. So close he can smell the rain.

Atsumu swallows.

“Alright, Omi-kun,” he says, a tiny waver in his voice, “stop starin’ at me like that.”

Sakusa looks away.

He turns, instead, to glower determinedly at the window. Rain is cascading down the glass, droplets racing each other along the pane and leaving spheres imprinted across the surface like stars. And despite that, God help him, his hand is still absentmindedly buried in Atsumu’s hair, playing with the golden locks, soft and slow. Tracing indiscernible patterns. Sakusa feels drained, suddenly.

There is a long while of silence before Atsumu speaks.

“How old were you in that photo?”

Sakusa turns back. Atsumu is pointing, his arm lifted sluggishly, at a picture, framed in poplar wood and rested on the nearest table. It’s of him holding a certificate for winning a mathematical contest, one parent on each side of him beaming in pride.

“Twelve.”

“Your hair was so long,” says Atsumu, chuckling. Sakusa can sense the sheepish way he’s trying to lighten the mood, to bring normalcy back and escape whatever electrifying, daunting exchange they’d just had. Sakusa lets him. “And what about that one?”

Sakusa follows his finger. It’s a picture of him and Ushijima, standing side by side-by-side with their boxing gloves on. Ushijima’s smile is awkward, comically like someone forced at gunpoint to merely pull a few facial muscles.

“Seventeen,” he says.

“Heh,” says Atsumu. “When I was seventeen I thought I’d feel that way forever.”

Sakusa looks at him.

Atsumu smiles. “Tell me a secret, Omi-kun.”

“What, another one?”

“You don’t have just the one, do you?”

Sakusa gazes at him, at the way Atsumu’s eyes are lidded heavy with sleep, at the way Atsumu’s hair tangles like waves against his hand.

A certainty rises in him, lodges in his throat.

_I want to stay by your side._

I want to stay by your side, Sakusa can tell him, infuriating though you are. Uncertain though everything is. Isn’t it dangerous chasing a feeling like this? I want to stay by your side, and that’s the entire problem.

But before the confession can escape him, Atsumu makes a small humming noise, and nods off.

Sakusa stares, blinking, as Atsumu drops all guard and dozes, his mouth slightly parted. The rain is only a light shower now, blanketing the city in faint silver and drumming a steady rhythm against the earth. It sounds like a collapse, Sakusa thinks, watching as Atsumu sleeps, tired and cozy, familiar as an old shirt but softer still, and warm beside him.

Through the window of a neighbouring building, a camera clicks.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [@YuliceChan](https://twitter.com/YuliceChan) drew an incredibly gorgeous BEAUTIFUL [fanart on twitter](https://twitter.com/YuliceChan/status/1324202894938308610) for this scene. Please give Alice all your love and support--I can't do it alone!!!
> 
>  **(28 Feb 2021) Edit:** @bisherlaa also drew a sweet and lovely [fanart](https://twitter.com/bisherlaa/status/1360401538179428352) of this scene! Thank you thank youuu Michelle!!!


	5. Atsumu

Atsumu wakes to the deafening sound of silence.

 _Huh,_ he thinks, blinking away the haze of sleep, _this is weird._ And as the room comes into focus—bright with soft daylight streaming from the window—Atsumu for a moment forgets that he’s not home.

But then he catches sight of the picture frames on the walls, the precisely tidy arrangements of furniture, ( _the familiar, distinct smell of Sakusa wafting from the bathrobe around him_ ) _,_ and Atsumu is grounded safe in the realization that it’s Sakusa’s apartment.

He’s lying on a pillow with a blanket covering him, and Sakusa isn’t there. Slightly disoriented, Atsumu pushes himself up from the couch and glances around. No sight of Sakusa. No noise except for the low, buzzing inner workings of the refrigerator. It also smells like Omi-kun and, heh, air freshener. Been a while since he’s entered an apartment with so much methodical order.

Atsumu gets up on his feet, his stomach rumbling empty, and sees that the door to the bedroom is halfway open. Boundaryless as he always is, it takes him no reluctance to tip-toe over to it.

 _There you are_ , he thinks giddily.

Sakusa is sleeping on the bed inside. He lies on one side, strands of hair falling against the fabric of the pillow, the blanket drawn an inch past his shoulders. Atsumu quietly closes the distance between them and crouches down beside him. In the soft, ethereal glow of morning, Sakusa looks peaceful, calm as a deep lake of still waters. It sort of makes Atsumu feel too tainted to touch.

 _Weren’t ya playin’ with my hair yesterday,_ he recalls. The memory of Sakusa threading fingers through his faux-gold locks sends a funny tingle down his spine. _I thought you hated skin-to-skin contact._

Well. No matter. Atsumu glances around, trying to find some sort of pen to draw on Sakusa’s face with, when something white on the bedside table catches his attention. He tilts on his heels, leans a bit closer, and recognizes it as a postcard and a photo.

The photo is of two guys, both looking at the camera. One of them has light brown hair and short, round eyebrows; he’s grinning joyfully and throwing up a peace sign. The other seems stonily stoic and strangely familiar… and Atsumu instantly realizes that it’s the guy in Sakusa’s seventeen-year-old photo: the boxing one.

The postcard is from someone named Komori Motoya, sent from Paris judging by the typical Eiffel Tower on the cardstock. In large handwriting, it reads:

_Kiyoomi!_

_I know postcards are so archaic but I love them so I’m bombarding you with them. I didn’t get to take a pic with THE Tendou Satori I’M SO SAD but here’s one with your cruuusshhh. He says hello and wishes you luck with Miya Atsumu and asked that you call to tell him if the situation is more bearable haha. I told him that HE should call YOU. But ANYWAY next stop is Spain! I hope you’re keeping all of my postcards please Europe really isn’t fiscally kind to tourists._

_Your (hopefully favourite) cousin_ _Motoya_

Atsumu frowns, the words on paper struggling their way into his understanding. Never mind the bearability of being around him, but ‘crush’? He’s guessing by the tone of the message that Sakusa’s cousin is not the impassive, stolid-looking muscle of a man, so—what, would _he_ be his crush?

 _Huh._ Atsumu turns the thought over in his head. _I guess you're not straight, Omi._

Then his phone buzzes in his pocket.

Atsumu almost jumps out of his skin. Frantic, he’s out of the bedroom in four long strides, hastily fishing the phone out. It’s Osamu.

Atsumu picks up. “I told you I didn’t take your bamboo roller.”

“Are you keepin’ Sakusa Kiyoomi a secret from me?”

Atsumu blinks. “What?”

“Oh,” says Osamu, his voice deflating. There’s an unsettling understanding in his tone, a familiar disappointment that Atsumu recalls from the time Osamu was still singing. “This is gonna be shitty then, ‘Tsumu. Turn on _Tokyo Reporter_ if ya have a TV around. Or just google yourself.”

“What,” says Atsumu.

.

_ BREAKING NEWS! WHO IS MIYA ATSUMU’S NEW LOVER?! _

_It isn’t news that long-time playboy Miya Atsumu had always been jumping from fling to fling, one-night stands to casual FWBs. Well, guys and gals, it seems things have finally gotten serious for this flighty singer!_

_It has been noted that while Miya is frequently seen at Black Jackals and is known for bringing men home, he has not taken any other lover in the past 6 weeks. And the reason for this could be in the form of none other than his bodyguard of two months: Sakusa Kiyoomi._

_Last night, a photo (shown below) was captured of Miya and Sakusa, cozying up on the latter’s couch in an apartment building in Daikanyama district. You can see that Sakusa is playing with Miya’s hair (how cute!), and Miya is_ clearly _wearing Sakusa’s bathrobe. And I mean—it seems pretty obvious that both of them have just gotten out of the shower together! And the way that Sakusa is staring at Miya—how can that_ not _be love?_

_So. Could this be his new boyfriend? Could this be getting serious? Why have they been hiding this? Will they be releasing a statement about this affair?!_

_We don’t know much about Sakusa Kiyoomi yet, but we are trying to find out as much as possible._

_Stay tuned to find out, and hit subscribe!_

.

Here’s what happens:

After reading the article, Atsumu nearly throws his phone against the wall. Since that’s useless to everyone, what he does instead is breathe, in and out, for a few moments of composure, and then storms over to the window and draws the curtains closed.

He has been through this many times. Many, many times. He knows what will happen. So when Kita answers his call and says, _Tell Kiyoomi to prepare for this to be blown out of proportion,_ Atsumu has gotten so angry that he kicks the wall and accidentally wakes Sakusa.

Atsumu feels horribly guilty, the knots tying in his stomach as he frantically explains to Sakusa what has happened. There’s nothing they can do, he thinks, watching helplessly as Sakusa’s face pales.

Because the minute they open the door to the apartment, the swarms of camera flashes almost blind them.

.

Here’s what happens:

The problem isn’t only the hoards and hoards of people crowding around them, Atsumu realizes in the days following. As though that’s not awful enough.

Perhaps out of insensitivity, but he’s never realized the full extent of Sakusa’s discomfort around crowds until now. Before, it has only been touches unwanted from both parties. One push from Sakusa, and the person would step down; one arm out, and the person would shy away, opting instead to call for Atsumu’s name. But now—now that their target is Sakusa, their hands try to grab for him, their cameras trained on him, his name in their shouts. Atsumu feels a pang—not even a pang, actually, just waves upon waves of unrelenting anger, _so much goddamn anger_ —at the way Sakusa flinches and is quickly tipped to the edge of his senses.

 _Don’t mind them,_ Atsumu can’t say, because—well.

The problem isn’t only the hoards and hoards of people crowding around them. Besides Line, Sakusa has no other accounts on social media, so the stalking naturally moves itself to the physical world. It’s not like Sakusa stays home these days for their imploring eyes, but his face scrunches up in disdain when his apartment address is published, posted for all to see. Comments rush in about what his personality must be like, considering the choice of a secure building, of the quiet district, of the wide window on the twelfth floor.

Posts and articles and videos and _Hot news! More info about Miya Atsumu’s secret boyfriend!_ are released online. They find out what schools Sakusa went to, which boxing coach he learned from, what previous employers he worked under. What relationships he had and has. In the wake of Sakusa’s mortification and Atsumu’s begrudging expectation, the sudden attention got Sakusa’s ex-girlfriend—a sweet but talkative girl—to publicly say, _oh, yes, we dated in high school, he was nice, but we broke up because I couldn’t deal with him wanting everything to be perfectly clean_ _all the time, you know, relax a bit, but really I’m glad that he’s found—_

The fact that the break-up reason is new information for Atsumu just goes to show how prodding, how suffocating it all is. It’s inane, really, but nothing Atsumu doesn’t already know.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case for Sakusa.

It’s like watching an open wound ooze, Atsumu thinks. Sakusa’s initial discomfort slowly turns into irritation, into gall. And by the third day, as Kita comes over and tells them there is not much else he can do to diffuse the situation, Sakusa looks like he’s ready to hurt someone.

 _If only_ , Atsumu starts to think, but halts.

.

It’s the fourth day.

Atsumu needs to calm down.

He has already publicly stated that there is nothing between them, but of course, that does nothing to constrain everyone’s assumptions. _You’re_ _just lying,_ they say. _You just want to keep your relationship private. But we know._

Atsumu needs to calm down before someone loses an eye. And being the intuitive twin that he is, Osamu had offered to come over and make him dinner.

So now Atsumu leans on the kitchen counter, his thumb scrolling through pages and pages of gossip, the never-ending links of it. The near orange shades of early evening cast over Atsumu’s kitchen, throwing shadows over the sun-steeped room. It’s just him and Osamu, who stands beside him, a ball of rice rolled in his hands.

“To be honest,” says Osamu, “the picture they got was very easy to misinterpret.”

He looks unperturbed—the usual serene, bored expression on his face like it’s forever imprinted. It makes Atsumu want to kick him in the stomach.

So he does.

“Ow, you fuckin’ shit pig!” says Osamu, clutching at his abdomen. “What’s _wrong_ with you?”

“It’s your face, asshole!” says Atsumu. “Can’t you show more concern for this?”

Osamu scowls. “So what, how many times has this happened before?”

Fifteen times, to be exact. Fifteen times of varying degrees, but half of them—the more popularized half—were rumours pairing him up with another celebrity. That’s never been much of a problem personally, because both of them knew how to handle unexpected fame. But with the half consisting of all the unknown faces, being scrutinized and paid attention to by the public eye had either been excruciating or overwhelmingly joyful for them. One or the other. Even before seeing Sakusa’s reaction, Atsumu had already known which one he would’ve been.

“Maybe if Omi-kun were an attention whore,” says Atsumu, “this would’ve been better.”

“Very weird thing to say.”

“He’s just so private, ‘Samu,” says Atsumu. “It took him _weeks_ to tell me he likes umeboshi! How the hell is he gonna keep toleratin’ all of this?”

“The same way everyone does.” Osamu shrugs. “Suck it up.”

“’Suck it up’,” Atsumu parrots mockingly. “Part of the reason why you quit was ‘cause you can’t handle all the fame, y’know.”

“Oy,” says Osamu, his tone warning. “If it were any other career path we were on, I would’ve still chosen this.”

Atsumu crosses his arms and sulks. He knows he’s being unfair. He knows he’s being petulant, but there’s been a frustrating amount of anger simmering in him the past four days. And it’s only been _four days_. Rumours die with time, but it seems this one may persist for months at the least.

 _What if he leaves you_ , a voice in him says. _What if he can’t take any more of this, and quits, and leaves you?_

Atsumu hasn’t even had time to think about the postcard. All his concerns have been in tracking the news, in watching Sakusa tighten his fist and frown in abhorrence. And the postcard—the postcard that accompanies the stoic image of Sakusa’s crush. Atsumu gets into a foul mood every time he tries to think about it.

Because Sakusa hasn’t even told him about it. There are many things Sakusa keeps from him, it seems, blunt though he is. And the thought of asking, _Omi-kun, d’ya really have a crush on this guy,_ is like watching the fall of a stone cast into an abyss, because isn’t that futile? How is Atsumu supposed to bring it up in the middle of all this, like he’s no better than the prying eyes of the public?

“Hey,” says Osamu, snapping his fingers. “Were you listenin’?”

“No,” says Atsumu.

Osamu blinks slowly, as if it’s taking all of his restraint to not slip arsenic into the food. “I was _saying_ , this rumour started ‘cause ya shared…an intimate moment one time, but it took off partly ‘cause ya haven’t slept with anyone recently.” He levels Atsumu’s gaze, stern as stone. “I think you know what you can do to stop the rumours.”

Atsumu’s blood runs cold.

Of course. He hadn’t thought about it. He—well, Atsumu hadn’t slept with anyone recently because his sexual drive with most people hadn’t been very high lately. The cloud of lust that used to surround him had cleared for, what, more than a month now. Atsumu just figures that meaningless nights with strangers had gotten old, and besides, the knowledge of Sakusa being only two doors away feels strange. Inappropriate, somehow.

 _Wait,_ Atsumu backtracks, _‘most’ people?_

“Hey, hold on,” says Osamu, because he must’ve caught the expression on Atsumu’s face. “D’ya not enjoy flings that much anymore?”

“No, it’s,” says Atsumu, swallowing. “I’ve just been busy.”

Osamu waits, but seems to realize that that’s all the elaboration he’ll get. “Look,” he says. “I’m not sayin’ you should, ‘cause Sakusa-kun can handle himself. These things always die down with time.”

“But not fast enough,” Atsumu mutters.

Osamu hesitates.

“D’ya like him?”

“ _No_ ,” Atsumu immediately says, but quickly averts his gaze and stares at the floor when he feels the burn of Osamu’s eyes on his cheeks. Truth be told, he neither has the time to process any of it, nor has the courage to. So what comes out is, “Does it look like I do?”

Osamu sighs. “I can see that you're afraid he’ll quit.”

There’s a beat of silence. Atsumu keeps his gaze on the ceramic tiles, squares and squares of it, because he doesn’t know what else is safe to do.

“Y’know,” says Osamu, “even without the rumours, the way he played with your hair and looked at you in that photo—I would’ve gotten some ideas anyway.”

“What the hell are you sayin’,” Atsumu snaps. “That we were bein’ too unrealistically close?”

“That he may care for you,” says Osamu, “and won’t leave.”

Atsumu glowers at him, hating the fact that Osamu’s _wrong, you're wrong, ‘Samu, because you don’t know that Omi-kun already has someone he likes._

But Atsumu doesn’t get to say it, because it’s then that Sakusa walks into the room.

Atsumu knows immediately that something is wrong. Sakusa, who always walks surely and steadily, who always keeps his expression impassive as though nothing in the world can hurt him, is approaching with an edge to his steps, an abnormal stiffness to his face.

“What’s,” Atsumu begins.

“This came for both of us,” says Sakusa, handing over a white envelope, “so I already saw what’s inside.” 

Atsumu takes it. Sprawled on the front of the envelope are both their names, written in the familiar handwriting. There’s no return address.

 _This archaic bastard_ , Atsumu thinks, feeling the bubble of dread rise in his stomach even before he takes out the photographs inside.

They’re all of Sakusa. It would’ve been okay, would’ve been foreseen, if the pictures were taken of him in the present. But Atsumu looks with horror as he pulls out photos of Sakusa in a school uniform, talking to a girl who seems to be his girlfriend at the time; of Sakusa in junior high, his backpack and mask and shoulders more hunched than now; of Sakusa as a child, barely above eight, staring at the camera awkwardly with who appears to be his grandma beside him.

“Oh,” says Osamu, “ _shit_.”

“They seem to have dug some things up,” Sakusa mutters. “These pictures are nowhere online.”

Atsumu’s hands are shaking. Rage, rage, blinding rage, the heat of it threatening to burst. He holds the last photograph in his hand—his unsteady fuckin’ hand—and sees that it’s one of Sakusa sleeping in his bed. Calm as a deep lake, but he’s barely ten.

“There’s a note,” says Sakusa.

When Atsumu finds it, it reads, simply: _SWEET KID, YOUR BOYFRIEND WAS_.

He rips the piece of paper apart.

.

It hadn’t always been like this.

When Atsumu was seventeen, he and Osamu had just gotten discovered by Kita. In all honesty, there was an exciting thrill to it. An exhilaration that comes not only with the thought of people listening to him, but of people _paying attention_ to him, their eyes on him, their adoration directed at him. Their praise is their love, he thought, and he was on the precipice of it all.

When Atsumu was seventeen he thought he’d feel that way forever. But part of adulthood is being aware of the bad side to things, and time had made him realize with frozen immediacy the helplessness of human indecency, and the deprivation of relationships that comes with. There are good sides to it, of course, but since Atsumu’s personality is—to put it delicately—somewhat rotten, the bad shows itself more often than not.

And Atsumu, being a brat, a devil-may-care, had gone, _Fine by me,_ and shut down intimacy, because isn’t music the thing that matters more? That’s right, that’s it—music. One more song, one more chord, one more note. As long as he can pull people in and drown them out with song.

Music. That’s what matters.

_Have you ever thought of quitting?_

What a question, Omi-kun. At times like these—

“This is for you,” says Atsumu, holding out a ticket.

The two of them are sitting on opposite couches, in the living room of Atsumu’s house. With the curtains drawn, only a few weak rays of early morning manage to filter through the cracks. Sunlight would’ve been lovely though, Atsumu muses, a bit regretful, but no matter. The room is lit with fluorescent lights, anyhow.

“What is this?” Sakusa asks, not yet taking the offered ticket. He’s been more on guard than before, his dark eyes set in extreme caution. Even the way he sits, elbows on his knees, his back crouched and hands together, makes Atsumu feel like he’s ready to charge at any moment.

And that’s fair. The arrival of the envelope had put them both on high alert, to Atsumu’s irritation. He knows it’s a coax, a disturbing taunt meant to scare and disgust them, so reacting the way these bastards wanted made him feel like he had lost, in a way.

“Take it,” says Atsumu. “Consider it a token of my generosity.”

“Have you hit your head?” says Sakusa.

“C’mon, Omi-Omi,” says Atsumu, flapping the piece of paper. “It’s a ticket to Spain. Take it.”

Sakusa stares at him for a long moment, his gaze searching. Atsumu tries to keep his face as cheerfully blank as possible. “Why are you giving me this?”

“I’m givin’ you a week off,” says Atsumu. “It’s been a tough few days. Go to Spain, take a vacation, do whatever. I’ll pay for your hotels and any transportation. No one will bother you in Europe.”

Sakusa squints. “Look, I know the photos were…unsettling, but this is going too far, Miya.”

Atsumu almost laughs. “ _I’m_ the one who’s goin’ too far.”

“You booked me a _flight_ across _continents_ ,” says Sakusa. “It’s almost moronic.”

“I’m rich,” Atsumu reminds him. “I am also but a magnanimous person.”

Sakusa lifts a brow.

“I take offense to that,” says Atsumu. “But seriously, Omi—take it, fuck, my arm’s gonna fall off.”

Sakusa gingerly takes the ticket from his hand. He scans it once, then lifts his head and says, incredulous, “The flight’s tonight.”

“This is also a lesson of spontaneity,” says Atsumu. “You have to let loose a little, y’know. You're too uptight.”

“How gratuitous,” Sakusa says dryly. “You’re not coming?”

“You look like you need a break,” says Atsumu, shrugging. “Unlike you, I don’t mind attention, Omi-Omi. Has it not been awful for ya?”

“I’d be lying if I said it’s bearable,” says Sakusa. “But I will still do my job.”

“And I want you to do your job _well_ ,” says Atsumu. “Not look like you're bein’ tortured every single minute of every single day. It’s unbecoming.”

Sakusa stares at Atsumu. That old unwavering, sharp stare—so intimidating that Atsumu can’t help but look away.

“What’s going on, Miya?”

Atsumu tries his best not to fidget. It takes a surprising amount of effort to tear his eyes away from the carpet and meet Sakusa’s gaze. “Fine, look,” says Atsumu, scratching his head, “Kita-san said you needed a break, so I bought you a ticket to Spain, ‘cause why not.”

Sakusa frowns. “But—”

“I’ll get the part-time bodyguards to alternate hours.” Atsumu’s words are pouring out of him, unstoppable as his nerves. “You can take today off to pack and shit. Whenever you wanna get back, I’ll reimburse you, but I’m givin’ you a week off, so might as well stay there for seven days, hm? It’ll also be better for the rumours and the publicity if we’re not seen together for the next while.”

Sakusa had opened his mouth to interrupt, but immediately closes it as Atsumu utters the last sentence.

 _Ah,_ thinks Atsumu, _so that’s what it takes._

Sakusa drops his head down to study again the ticket, his brows furrowed.

“Yeah,” he says, so low it’s almost a murmur, “I suppose it’s better.”

“See,” says Atsumu.

.

Atsumu tries not to think about it.

As Sakusa gathers his belongings and leaves the house, a mere hour after the ticket was handed to him, Atsumu tries not to think about the gaping hole he feels under him. Lies on lies on lies—isn’t that what he’s good at?

Of course Kita never said anything. Atsumu’s sending Sakusa to Spain because that’s where his cousin is, but really, besides the fact that Sakusa needs to be somewhere where people can’t hound on him, Atsumu simply doesn’t want Sakusa to be in the next room while he…

And something else nags in the back of his mind. A tiny, prodding, near risible idea.

Would Sakusa try to get to Paris? To where that guy in the postcard is?

Atsumu knows he can be a complete idiot sometimes. He knows he can be rash, a frail barrier against the id, but this time seems like a colossal misfire even to him. He had gone on the airline website out of the pure desire to get Sakusa as far away as possible, but had bought the flight ticket with this murky possibility in mind. And maybe—with the resentment towards the paparazzi, the bitterness from the postcard, the frustration building up over the hours and days—maybe it was, in part, curious self-destruction. Send them to where their affections are. Push them away before they can leave you—isn’t that a thought.

So Atsumu tries not to think about it as he heads to the club that night, the unfamiliar presence of a different bodyguard tailing behind him. He tries not to think about it as Akaashi watches him gulp down a number of shots that he’ll forget, as midnight goes by in a blur of voices honing in on him, as the glasses in his hand continue to catch the dim red of hanging lights.

He _especially_ doesn’t think about it when he sidles in next to some well-built guy with eyes so black it pains him.

 _Witchin’ hour, ain’t it,_ Atsumu says.

The man stares at him and smirks, murmurs something in his ear, and by the end of the night Atsumu takes him home. They stumble through the darkness of the hallway, hands on waist, mouth on neck, and Atsumu pushes up against him when they finally make it to the bed, the liquor faint in their breaths, their figures shifting in the dark, and he can’t think, he can’t think about it. All he wants to do is go to the nearest dump and retch and retch and retch and retch and retch and

 _Make it hurt,_ he says. _Make it really hurt._

 _Well, well,_ the man says, smiling, _I had no idea you were into that, Miya Atsumu._

 _Congrats,_ Atsumu pants, _you can tell everyone about it after,_ and pulls him down by the back of his neck.

.

He sleeps through morning.

When Atsumu wakes, it’s not to the sound of birds chirping; there’s only the dull buzz of an early afternoon, the city already stirred from rest.

The whole room smells like sex. Atsumu feels disgusted, his body covered in the scent of someone he’d rather forget was ever there.

And his whole body aches. Christ, it hurts everywhere. There’s pain searing through his shoulders, his arms, the small of his back and even further down—it feels like unyielding pressure on sore joints. Atsumu’s vision focuses as he looks down and sees a cut on his left arm, grazed and wounded but not bleeding, and the multitudes of bruises on his thighs, his hips. All three-sixty of his wrists are red, chafed from restraint.

Sluggish and pained, he brings a hand up to his face. And what d’ya know, there’s even a throbbing hangover headache.

The faint, distant sound of cars zoom by through the window. Atsumu turns his head, sees the slow breath of wind stir the curtains, a graceful billow like a waterfall made of light.

God, he’s so tired.

“Well, that was fun,” comes a voice beside him. The mattress shifts. “You wanna go for round three?”

Atsumu glares at him. The man (what the hell was his name again?) winces a little, but keeps his smile on. He’s naked and lying on his stomach, his hair tussled, his cheek rested on the palm of his hand.

“I wanna be alone right now,” says Atsumu, because he can’t—can’t deal with this.

The guy frowns, face set in indignation. “The hell, is this how you treat every normal person not worthy of your status?”

“Normal person,” Atsumu echoes, as if testing the ridiculousness of the notion. Something in him snaps, suddenly; a string pulled too taut. “Ah, fucking—I have to always be nice, or else it’s ‘cause of my fame that I’m an asshole? Newsflash, you scrub, I’m just a fuckin’ asshole most of the time. Don’t take it personally.”

This poor stranger. Atsumu’s own anger fades as he watches the lines of his face contort, wrinkle into wrath. Wordlessly, the man gets up from the bed, pulls on his boxers, his pants, his shirt, the movements wretchedly automated. The silent fury feels worse, somehow.

“Hey, ah,” says Atsumu, the guilt too heavy, as the guy puts on his jacket and marches furiously away from him, “there’s food for breakfast downstairs, if ya wanna—”

The door slams shut.

There’s a low echo of metal on wood, followed by the fading stomps of footsteps. Alright, Atsumu sighs. He’ll tell everyone that Atsumu is a nasty son of a bitch, but at least he’ll say that they’ve slept together. That’s all he needs.

Atsumu forces his body up to a sitting position, one painful shift at a time, and leans his back against the pillows. Shit, even his back stings with the fresh scratches that come with nails digging into skin. A much-needed shower would be nice, once Atsumu has the energy to get up from the bed. For now, he pulls the blanket over him, its fabric shielding for comfort.

Then the door clicks open and swings slowly ajar, without a knock, without forewarning.

Atsumu lifts his head—ready to either tell his one-night stand that really, c’mon, sorry but he isn’t feeling well, or to tell the part-time bodyguard that it’s rude to enter without knocking—but then catches sight of the person standing by the door.

Atsumu gapes. “Why the hell are you here?”

Sakusa doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything. The top two buttons of his shirt are loose, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, but he still has on a mask and a pair of gloves—at least, that’s what Atsumu tries to concentrate on instead of his eyes. Eyes that are boring into him for moments too long.

And then Sakusa walks away.

Atsumu blinks, shocked as if he’d been punched, and stares at the empty space by the door. The waning footsteps sound like a toll, and as Atsumu glances down at himself, of course, _of course I’m fuckin’ filthy right now, he wouldn’t_ —

“I didn’t leave.”

Atsumu looks up. Sakusa’s stepping towards him, a towel in one arm and what looks like a box of band-aids in another.

Atsumu chokes out a laugh, instantly hyper-aware of the blanket covering everything below his waist. “What’re you doin’?”

Sakusa pulls over a chair and sits, a mere arm’s reach between them. This close, Atsumu notices that his eyes are rigid, emotionless as if a wall has been built before them. It’s unnerving and slightly terrible, Atsumu thinks, to suddenly not be able to read him.

“I should think that’s obvious, Miya,” says Sakusa.

He places his hand under Atsumu’s arm and holds—just the area right above his wrist. The simple contact is making Atsumu’s fingers curl. He doesn’t know what to do when Sakusa touches him with this much tenderness, this much purpose. He also can’t tell what Sakusa’s thinking at all, staring at the redness around his wrists like that.

“When did you get back?” Atsumu manages to choke out.

“I never got on the plane,” Sakusa says evenly. “I gave the ticket to my mother. She always wanted to visit. I came back here yesterday, while you were out.”

Atsumu’s face feels hot, his hands trying not to shake. “Did—did you hear…?”

Sakusa smiles. Or, at least, a very wry imitation of it, because it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You weren’t kidding,” he says, voice level, “about being loud.”

Atsumu’s burning up. It’s not from embarrassment—he never gets embarrassed from things like this—but it’s, Jesus, why the hell didn’t Sakusa leave the way he planned?

Atsumu wonders, agitatedly, what Sakusa thinks, coming back only to know that Atsumu had slept with someone the very same night like it's a secret. Because how can I expect you to know, Omi-kun, that I did this for you, and not for the fun of it? How can I explain to you that I didn’t want you to see this, because wouldn’t that subject you to mean something different to me, and force that burden onto you?

Sakusa lifts his arm.

The touch is gentle, tender as he wipes across the cut and reddened skin with the towel, the hot dampness of it nothing short of a relief. It almost makes Atsumu want to cry.

“I haven’t showered, y’know,” Atsumu murmurs. “Isn’t this disgusting?”

“It is, a bit,” says Sakusa, but he makes no move to shy away. All he does is pull out a band-aid from the box, unwraps it, and presses it carefully over the cut.

“This is awful, Miya,” says Sakusa, turning his wrists over to examine. “Why did you let yourself get this hurt?”

The answer comes easy, so bare and naked in its glaring truth.

Because I didn’t want any of this, Omi.

Atsumu can feel it—a cry vice-tight around his heart. Because he didn’t want any of this. He didn’t want to watch everyone invade Sakusa’s privacy. He didn’t want to receive all those photos of a younger Sakusa, an awful intrusion of his childhood. He didn’t want to take someone home and fuck them, thinking that Sakusa already has someone he cares about, and pretend that the alcohol is enough to drown it all out. So if pain and a few bruises is the price to pay to wrench himself away from that and forget him all those thoughts, then Atsumu figured that it's as good as any deal goes. He’d much rather bleed a little.

“I don’t know, Omi,” he says. “I guess I fucked up.”

Sakusa’s expression drops. He frowns, deep and unguarded, and Atsumu can now see the irritation in his stare, along with something that appears to be anger.

“Come on,” Sakusa mutters. “What’s wrong with you, Miya.”

Atsumu blanches. “What?”

“This was very stupid, I hope you know,” Sakusa continues. “You’re being careless—”

“Oh, c’mon,” Atsumu groans, “so what if I have rough sex once in a while?”

“ _This_ ,” says Sakusa, pointing to a larger bruise on his side. “This is not _fine_. You really do not take care of your health. There are better ways to do things.”

And maybe it’s all the exhaustion affecting him, or maybe it’s the hurt pride, the disappointment—but Sakusa’s words right now _incenses_ Atsumu, because how _dare_ he come back here and get frustrated at Atsumu, judgmental and sanctimonious like Atsumu had managed to betray him?

“Please, enlighten me,” Atsumu bites out, his hands balled into fists. “Tell me how to live my damn life.”

Sakusa glares at him. “I’m only saying that you haven’t been careful, idiot. You really throw caution to the wind sometimes, and—”

 _I fuckin’ did all of this for you_ , he wants to scream, “and you're _lecturing_ me? If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t _once_ complained about this.” Atsumu feels it pouring out of him, lava-hot, the stress and frustration and hatred for what he’s done morphing into bite, and he’s tired, tired, so unbelievably _tired_ of this. “I can do whatever I want. I can fuck whoever I want. It’s none of your damn business!”

The walls around Sakusa’s expression are crumbling, Atsumu notes with sadistic triumph. Sakusa looks slightly affronted now, a veil of hurt, but he tightens his grip around Atsumu’s hand and says, “You’re being difficult, Miya.”

And that’s the last straw.

“Get out,” Atsumu growls. “ _Don’t touch me_.”

It’s funny, Atsumu will realize later, how much you can hurt someone with just three words. The dead silence hangs in the air, a cord wrapped around its neck, too tight to breathe.

Sakusa looks like someone had just slapped him.

Atsumu feels sick. The insides of his guts tie into knots as Sakusa’s grip slackens, releasing Atsumu’s arm as if he’d been burned.

After a long moment, Sakusa stands, the chair creaking across the floor, and says, “Alright.” There’s a fragment of hurt hiding on the weight of his shoulders; an angry trace of resignation in his eyes.

Atsumu listens to him leave. To the quiet closing of the door and the fading footsteps.

He sits, for a heavy while, trying to take in even breaths amidst the silence of the empty room.

The cut stings him from under the band-aid. _Fine,_ Atsumu thinks, waiting for the heat to cool down in him. This whole mess is his own doing, anyhow. Twenty-four is young still, fresh as grass, but old enough for the pettiness in him to carry some weight. But God, all this suffocation. All these complications. If he just remembers how things were when he was seventeen—the simple flashes of zeal, wisps of clear emotion. It’s like watching the sky from the tranquil bottom of a pool, the sun webbed on its surface millions of miles above you. You’d think it far enough a world away.

A whiff of day-chilled wind comes cresting over the curtains. It catches in Atsumu’s hair, brushes soft against his cheeks. He closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall, if only to better feel it.

.


	6. Atsumu

Rain.

Two days later, it rains.

Atsumu stands by his window and watches the droplets fall. _Part of rain comes from the ocean,_ his mother used to say, especially with Tokyo being so near the sea. Soft but unrelenting, it’s now covering Tokyo in a thin sheet of grey, breaking apart on the ground like pebbles grazing the ocean floor, its sound a low drone.

 _Give it five days_ , he thought. _Give it five days, and the rumours will stop._

In reality, it only took two.

Atsumu thought that he might’ve had to sleep with multiple people, but—what’s that saying again?—rumours are always like wildfire. Words truly have their own way of traveling, because by the end of the first day, it was known, to both listening and denying ears, that Miya Atsumu had slept with some stranger he met at a club and had acted like a complete asshole. It subdued most of everyone’s interest in Sakusa Kiyoomi, and after the second day, they had generally given up on chasing after an unlikely story. Granted, there were and still are some fans insistent on it all being a misdirection—nudging dangerously close to the truth, nettlesome as they are—but even so. The hounding stopped.

And Sakusa—well. That evening, many hours after their awful morning, Sakusa had managed to subtly avoid him. The realization dawned on Atsumu when they had almost walked into each other as they rounded two sides of a corner, and Sakusa had jerked away like he’d been stung, too brisk to pass on as normalcy.

And in the wake of this realization, something tickled in the back of Atsumu’s mind. Something he had earlier been too glutted in pain to notice. Something he would’ve heard in the way Sakusa held his arm, in the way Sakusa chided him, had he only listened.

 _You were worried... about me._ Worry, not reproach; not anything more complex than solicitude. _You were worried about me?_ God, Omi. The bare sound of it—scarcely real.

Atsumu had known—even earlier that morning as he stood in the shower, staring at his drenched feet atop the tiles—that he had to apologize. Sorry, Omi, that I was a brat. Sorry I made you worry; I thought you'd tried to make me a better man. Sorry I was wrong.

“I’m sorry,” Atsumu managed out, the evening they ran into each other. “I didn’t mean what I said.”

Sakusa had looked at him, emotions steadily concealed, and Atsumu could only make out a possible twinge of sadness in his eyes.

And just as Atsumu started to think none of it was enough, Sakusa had nodded, curt, and walked past him without a word.

.

The rain clears on the fourth day.

Days like these, when the long hours of rain ceases after washing everything anew, Atsumu can smell the earth. It feels like a long haul back into the sun.

“So,” comes Osamu’s voice, “I guess things worked out.”

Atsumu turns around. It’s one of the rare occasions today that Osamu comes to the recording studio. The numerous small, yellow lights cast over the brown wood inside the recording room; over Kita and Aran, whose hands are flitting through the electronics and buttons and keyboards for function testing; over Osamu, who has gotten bored of technicalities and has rolled himself on the chair over to where Atsumu stands at the back. It’s just the four of them today.

“Yeah, I guess,” says Atsumu.

It’s a huge relief to be able to set the pesky paparazzi business aside. Atsumu hasn’t had the mind to focus on his music lately, and it’s been _months_ since he had performed in front of a live audience. It’s duly been practice after practice, recording after recording, and frankly Atsumu has gotten sick of it. Uncaring as he is of other people’s opinions, he still revels in performing, the enjoyment of attention lurking luridly underneath.

So naturally, he had called Kita and said, _I have a new song,_ and, since there is only one other person besides Kita who best knows how to give him feedback, _I want ‘Samu to hear it too._

In all honesty, he doesn’t know how they’ll receive it. Simply put, it’s different from the other songs he has written, and in the comfort of his home, Sakusa had been the only one so far to have heard it.

Atsumu scowls. _Sakusa_. Jeez, even now, he’s—

“You’re bein’ creepy,” says Osamu.

Atsumu starts. “What?”

“You’re lost in thoughts,” says Osamu. “You’re never lost in thoughts. It’s real creepy.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes. “Sometimes I think, dickhead. As shockin’ as that may be.”

With sheer momentum alone, Osamu rolls his chair even closer, his feet pressing against its legs. He’s staring at Atsumu with a controlled, slightly quizzical expression.

“What,” says Atsumu.

Osamu stares at Atsumu for a while longer. And then proceeds to kick him hard in the calf.

“Ow!” Atsumu yelps, incredulous, his legs almost buckling through the slight pain that shoots up. “The _hell_ , ‘Samu! What was _that_ for?!”

“What did you do, stupid,” says Osamu.

“What did _I_ do?” Atsumu sputters. “What did I— _you’re_ the one who assaulted me outta nowhere!”

“You’ve been weirdly quiet the whole mornin’,” says Osamu, slouching back against his chair, eyes narrowed. “Both you and Sakusa-kun have not said a single word to each other today, and he’s been walkin’ around like a kicked puppy. Somethin’ happened between you.”

“And this is _my_ fault?”

Osamu folds his arms and jerks his head to the door entrance, where Sakusa is most likely waiting outside, out of ear’s reach. “I wouldn’t think it’s the kicked puppy’s fault.”

Atsumu swallows his pride and forces down his annoyance, because of course there’s more than an inkling of truth in it.

Even after his apology, things between them have been tense. It’s like a curtain, blank as death, had drawn between them. Atsumu can’t tell what Sakusa’s thinking, can’t grasp or even attempt to guess his train of thought, because Sakusa is outright _avoiding_ him. He wouldn’t meet Atsumu’s eyes, wouldn’t answer more than what is necessary whenever Atsumu tries to have a conversation with him, wouldn’t even meet his eyes. And today—Atsumu notes with a frustrated pang—Sakusa had chosen to _not_ listen to Atsumu sing and left to be outside the soundproof confines of the recording studio, as he never does.

It’s beginning to feel like walking barefoot in mud.

“I think he hates me now,” Atsumu mumbles. “I guess one apology’s not enough.”

Osamu adjusts himself on the chair and regards him with a look as if to say, _Go on_. Atsumu sighs and lowers his voice, even though Kita and Aran wouldn’t’ve heard him anyway in their preoccupation. “It’s… well, we got into a bit of a fight after I slept with that rando. It was kinda rough, y’know, ‘cause I got some bruises and stuff, and then in the mornin’—”

“Lemme guess,” says Osamu. “Sakusa-kun toldja to take care of yourself, and you said somethin’ along the lines of ‘I can do whatever I want, it’s none of your business’?”

Atsumu winces.

“Verbatim, then,” says Osamu, looking vaguely amused. “Seriously, this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Shut up, it was your suggestion in the first place,” grumbles Atsumu, leaning back against the wall. “D’ya think a second apology would work?”

Osamu sends him a look: the corners of his mouth are curled up in a small smile, eyebrows pinched in a half-sympathetic, half-helpless frown. Being a twin, Atsumu knows what that look says: _I don’t think that’s what he’s upset about._

“Then what is it?” asks Atsumu.

Osamu shrugs. “You’re gonna have to figure this one out yourself, ‘Tsumu.”

“ _Hah_?” Atsumu snaps, annoyed. “Why the fuck?”

“Boys,” comes Kita’s voice. They both turn, unintentionally synchronized, to where Kita and Aran are staring at them. “We’ve finished settin' up. Atsumu, are you ready?”

“Wait,” says Aran, curiously. “I wanna know what they were talkin' about.”

“We’re talkin’ about 'Tsumu’s love life,” says Osamu, “and his assholery.”

“Oh,” says Aran. “I don’t wanna know.”

“It’s not my love life!” Atsumu rounds on him, embarrassed. “You're such a jerk!”

“Stupid.”

“Asshole!”

“Loser!”

“Heartless piece of shit motherfucker!”

“ _Children_ ,” says Kita reprovingly. Both of them jump, instantly abashed, and Atsumu wonders how someone can sound so stern without raising their voice. Kita briefly lifts his aggrieved eyes to the ceiling, although Atsumu doesn’t think there’s much there to answer him but a blotchy water stain on the tiles. “Please be mature. Seven years I’ve known you both and you still act like children.”

“Sorry,” they say in unison, heads hung.

“And as much as I appreciate the open discussion of feelings,” says Kita, “this studio is only booked for an hour. Everything’s working now, so whenever you’re ready, Atsumu, let’s get to work. We can all talk about this later.”

“We can all talk about this never,” mutters Atsumu, stomping sulkily into the acoustic enclosure of the live room.

He settles into the easy space of the piano, familiar in its existence, and adjusts the mic. It’s only him here, now. No instrumentalists, no other sound except for the hammering of strings between the damper and his own voice. No Sakusa standing near to listen to him.

And when Atsumu presses his fingers to the keys and pulls the words, the melody out of himself, it feels strange. Strange because every time he has played in the past two months, Sakusa has always been there, devoted as a shadow but comforting still, listening to him. It’s strange now, and a bit like void.

But maybe this is for the best, really. Because under the bleeding irritation at Sakusa ignoring him, Atsumu has realized that what he feels for Sakusa has gone beyond the point of attraction. It’s not only the act of recalling the black pools in Sakusa’s eyes as Atsumu reaches his hand under the sheets at night; it’s also yearning to touch the skin stretched over his neck, to spend their afternoons bickering or simply talking together. And it’s downright terrifying. Wanting someone in their entirety like this, the ache of it like devoration, is not something he’s used to. Atsumu can feel it seeping into his music, even now, the singe of longing in his blood. A fever of a song.

 _But then what?_ If by some unthinkable miracle, he confesses and Sakusa returns his feelings ( _the ludicrosity of it—almost laughable_ ), then what? It’s clear by now that Sakusa won’t be able to handle all of the fame that surrounds him. He’ll give up, and won’t that be a worse kind of heartbreak? To build up memories with someone and have them disappear from you?

So maybe this is for the best. Atsumu will have to apologize again—just because the thought of Sakusa hating him makes him break out in hives—but if they can keep a distance until Sakusa’s job contract ends, it may be for the best. Atsumu can let him go before these feelings run too deep.

“Atsumu.”

Atsumu startles out of it, flinching. The faint echoes of the song reverberates in his ears, and in the momentary daze he’s forgotten that he had finished singing.

When he lifts his head to look through the glass window, all three of them are staring at him. Aran’s eyes are wide, his mouth pursed into an impressed, content line. Kita and Osamu, on the other hand, appear thoughtful.

“So?” says Atsumu, almost smug from knowing already what they think of the song.

Kita and Osamu exchange the briefest of glances, too quick and fleeting to read, before they train their gazes back on him.

“I’m going to book you a show next month,” says Kita.

Atsumu almost leaps to his feet, the lingering traces of sadness nearly drowned out by excitement. “Really?”

“Really?” says Aran, with more concerned emphasis. “Hang on—”

“It’ll be a lot of work,” says Kita, in lieu of what Aran is surely about to say, “but we can do it. We’ll get all the instrumentalists and sound engineers together soon, preferably in a couple days. It’ll just be a small showcase, so you can play any of your old songs from the older albums, but you should perform this at the end.” He pauses, giving Atsumu one of his kind, soft smiles. “It’s a beautiful song, Atsumu. I think it’ll go very well.”

Atsumu can’t help his face from splitting into a grin. To be able to perform, after all the harshness he’s been encountering lately, is making his elation too soaring to contain, like a crest of water swelling over the edge of a tub. He can really ride this high for the rest of the day.

But as he looks over at Osamu, Atsumu feels his nerves thrumming against his skin.

Osamu is smiling at him, gentle and understanding, his arms folded across his chest as he rests his weight against the wall. Atsumu immediately knows—because there is nothing about him that goes amiss with Osamu, their closeness at these times an ire—that Osamu had heard the confession masked behind the song. Had understood that whatever Atsumu had just played, it was for Sakusa.

And if there were any doubts, they would’ve been dispelled when Osamu cups a hand over his cheek and mouths, _Tell him_.

.

The November sun sets early, blanketing its light like a warm cloak over the city. Atsumu walks through the hall on the second floor of his house and pauses to stare at the orange radiance outside. The evening haze maps the city before him, casts over the slanted roofs of houses, over the fallen leaves of his garden, stretches across the infinite expanse above. A single cloud, wispy as cotton, slowly disintegrates across the sky.

 _Tell him,_ Osamu had said, as if that’s easy. As if there will be no retribution that comes forthwith. As long as they’re together, there will always be pressure to be good in the public eye. And even if Sakusa doesn’t necessarily lack the wherewithal to endure it, Atsumu would hate to put him through it, days upon weeks upon months upon the hopeful years of it. Sometimes it’s easier to just let people go.

Atsumu drags himself through the hall, step by excruciating step, and stops when he notices that the door to one of the spare rooms is open.

Atsumu peers in.

Sakusa is standing by the bookshelves, his eyes intent the first few pages of an open book in his hands. He doesn’t have a mask on; Atsumu understands him well enough now to know that he only ever wears them while either in the vicinity of people or in public. The sleeves of his button-down shirt are rolled up to his elbows, the set of his shoulders rigid beneath the cascade of fabric. Under the late, dazzling glow of sunlight slanted through the window, Sakusa looks… unbelievably, ridiculously attractive. It makes Atsumu want to throw something at him.

But before he can act, or utter a single word, Sakusa turns towards him.

“Ah, hello,” says Atsumu, nervously wondering why it comes out all sheepish, like he had just walked into something not meant for him. He clears his throat, tries again. “Hey, Omi-Omi. Er, just a reminder, Kuroo’s birthday party is tonight. Not that his birthday is tonight—it’s actually next week, but he wanted to have a little get together or somethin’, to celebrate the—um. Yeah, it’s at eight. But we can be there for nine.”

One of Sakusa’s eyebrows lifts, a tiny trace of amusement in it.

“How didja know I was there, by the way?” Atsumu blurts out, unable to stop. “Didja hear me comin’?”

“You’re not exactly quiet,” says Sakusa.

Atsumu doesn’t quite know how to respond, his pulse a hummingbird.

“Well,” Sakusa says slowly, closing his book, “if that’s everything,” and begins to head for the door.

“Wait!” says Atsumu. “I—I have somethin’ to say.”

Sakusa halts in his steps, three feet between them.

Atsumu tries to control the rhythm of his breathing—which is absurd, because this isn’t even a confession. And he doesn’t get nervous, besides. Atsumu is the most non-nervous person he himself has ever known. But with Sakusa tilting his head at him like that, tense and imploring, Atsumu is acutely aware of the fraying of his own nerves.

“Okay,” says Atsumu. “So when I first met you, I thought we wouldn’t last three days in this house without killin’ each other.”

Sakusa gives him a flat, _where-is-this-going_ look.

Atsumu feels his pulse quickening, but continues on. “I thought you were all high and mighty, with the whole ‘your music sucks, don’t touch me you filthy peasant’ thing. I also thought you were a prick who didn’t care ‘bout anyone but yourself—”

“Is there a point to this,” says Sakusa.

“—and I was wrong about you,” says Atsumu. “But you might be right about me, if you thought that I was a stupid, arrogant, thoughtless brat who doesn’t know how to be nice to other people.” He pauses, inhales. “Sometimes I say things I don’t mean. Sometimes I like bein’ the center of attention, and sometimes I can’t care less about what other people think of me. But—well, all this is to say—I know I was bein’ a stupid, arrogant, thoughtless brat the other day, ‘cause you were only tryin’ to help. So I’m _sorry_.”

There is a long, pointed bout of silence.

“This is déjà vu,” says Sakusa. “You already apologized.”

Atsumu feels a sharp flare of impatience. “Well then why’re you avoidin’ me?”

Sakusa shifts his weight onto one leg and lets out a slow breath. He keeps his gaze on Atsumu, expression unreadable. Atsumu truly hates it when there’s no emotion on Sakusa’s face that he can translate.

“How are your bruises?” says Sakusa.

“Huh?” says Atsumu.

“Your bruises,” Sakusa repeats tersely. “Let me see them.”

Atsumu can feel his cheeks burning up, and hopes that it’s not very visible—which, unfortunately, it is, because Sakusa looks like he’s fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

“What, _now_ you’re shy?” he says, a hint on a smirk on his lips. “Just show me the largest one on your side.”

“I ain’t shy,” Atsumu mutters. But the contradiction comes when he lifts the left side of his shirt and feels the heat wash over the nape of his neck, coil into something low and unmistakable in his stomach. His body _burns_ from the unwavering stare that Sakusa is directing at him—only at him.

The bruise is still there, turning a lighter colour but still as large as his fist. It’s not a deep, hard bruise. It interfered with his singing slightly in the first few days, but now it’s more bearable, much easier to ignore.

“Does it hurt?” asks Sakusa.

“Nah, it doesn’t.”

Sakusa steps closer, until there is only a foot of space between them.

“Just admit to me that it hurts.”

“I said it doesn’t.”

Sakusa’s eyes flick up to meet Atsumu’s, as if Atsumu’s flushed expression is any verification for his words. Then his hand moves—twitches on his side, reaching up like he means to press it against the bruise—but freezes halfway. Guilt-ridden, Atsumu watches his arm retract, the consequences of their disagreement guiding its fall.

“I didn’t mean it, y’know,” Atsumu says, “when I told you not to touch me.”

Sakusa frowns, ever so slightly, and his mouth purses into a thin line. Atsumu wonders, distantly, dizzily, what Sakusa’s hand on his skin would feel like, bare and ungloved. What the warm, soft ridges of his palm would give him.

But in the end, Sakusa doesn’t move to touch him.

Instead, he says, “You have a high pain tolerance.”

“It’s just a bruise, Omi-kun,” says Atsumu, almost laughing, half out of nerves. “There’s not much pain to tolerate. The guy really didn’t do anythin’, actually, he just pushed and I banged my—”

“Stop,” says Sakusa. “I don’t want to hear about that.” 

Atsumu shuts up. With the sunlight drenching Sakusa behind his back, illuminating the curves of his shoulders, his hair, he looks almost _pained_. At least, that’s all Atsumu can decipher: too bitter to be sad, too worn to be angry.

A twinge of something rankles at Atsumu, like a splinter left unchecked.

“You didn’t answer my question earlier,” he says. “Why’re you avoidin’ me?”

Sakusa seems to consider a reply for a moment. But then, without warning, he lightly thumps the spine of the book in his hand onto Atsumu’s head, and says, “It’s nothing you should worry about.”

Even if it’s soft, even if it’s just the slightest pressure from the hardcover instead of the preferred skin or leather glove, the touch sends an alarming tingle through Atsumu anyway, past the tip of his ears down to the ends of his toes. _For heaven’s sake,_ he thinks, more than a little flustered.

“That was the weirdest apology I’ve ever heard, by the way,” says Sakusa, his mouth curving slightly upwards. “Your apologies are just like you, Miya. Rude but straight-forward.”

“Shut up, scrub,” Atsumu grumbles. “It’s your fault you never respond to ‘em.”

“My lack of response is my acceptance of them.”

“Why can’tcha just say ‘it’s all right’ like an actual human,” says Atsumu, but good-naturedly. Relief washes over him now, the waves of it breaking whatever remnants of tension that existed between them in the past few days. They can go back to normal, Atsumu thinks, but then catches himself. _Arm’s length,_ he corrects, _but normal._

Sakusa’s eyebrows are raised. “ _You’re_ talking to _me_ about conformity?”

“You're just weird, Omi-kun,” says Atsumu. “You need to learn some social skills.”

“Well, what do you know about it,” says Sakusa, but his tone is light.

“I know you have to always look presentable in a social setting,” says Atsumu. “Speakin’ of which, I’m gonna go get ready for the party.”

Sakusa stares at him. “It’s in three hours.”

“My hair needs a lot of stylin’.”

“ _Three_ _hours_ of—?” Sakusa pauses, aghast. “Well, all right. I guess I always knew you were a bit extra.”

“A bit?” says Atsumu, turning around to head out the door.

And then slams straight into it.

“Shit fuck!” he shouts, slumping into a crouch on the floor, hands shielded over his forehead at the stinging pain of the collision. _Stupid fuckin’ door!_ —surely there’s going to be a redness there later, Atsumu thinks, aggravated, swearing up a storm and kicking the door back in petty revenge. 

Sakusa makes a sound behind him. Atsumu whirls around, ready to direct the angry expletives at him too, when he sees that Sakusa has had his head turned to the side, a hand clamped over his mouth. His body is shaking.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Atsumu growls. “Are you laughin’ at me, asshole?”

Sakusa makes another strangled sound, and then his hand drops down to his chin as he turns to look at Atsumu.

_Oh._

It really is the most agonizing thing he could’ve done, because for a moment, Atsumu forgets to breathe.

Months together, and he has never seen Sakusa laugh. Not like this. And how strange it is, like a rumbling of the world on your shoulders, to suddenly know the weight of your own want. The crushing inertia of all your voiceless longing. Sakusa laughs—in his pure, quiet way—the sunlight behind him spilling over the lines of his eyes crinkled in mirth, bright as stars. He looks almost angelic. And hell—the sound of it. The damn sound of it. If Atsumu can be drunk on sound alone.

It is always better, Atsumu had thought, to let people go before you’ve gone in too deep, before you’ve fallen too hard, because it’s often such a harrowing sorrow to stand dumbly by the side and watch people as they walk away from you. As they shatter into a thousand memories and leave you.

 _But god, Omi,_ he thinks, unsteady on his feet, _I don’t know how to let you go_.

.

The evening melts into darkness. A night in Tokyo is simply a black canvas illuminated by cherry glows of building lights, red and green and blue and gold, blurring low over the city. It isn’t quite the place to be staring up into the starless sky, Atsumu thinks, wishing perhaps he could be somewhere else.

They arrive at Kuroo’s party at closer to ten.

Atsumu makes a face when their car pulls up. Kuroo’s house looks like he evades taxes for a living: secluded in a corner of an affluent neighbourhood, it stands in the middle of a wide lawn like a fortress, framed with pine, the windows so large it almost distracts him from the overhanging balcony on the second floor. He doesn’t think the difference between their wealth is staggering, but man, Kuroo really knows how to invest it in property.

“Like _you_ don’t invest money in your appearance,” says Sakusa, after taking one look at his face.

“I didn’t say anythin’,” says Atsumu, surprised.

“Your expression is pretty telling.”

Atsumu pouts.

They climb out of the car. Two guards in uniform stand by the entrance of the tall gates, hands behind their backs, and—with one look at Atsumu—let them in. He’s surprised that there is no one around them otherwise. Given that Kuroo is friends with a lot of famous people, Atsumu assumed that his house would be riddled with paparazzi. _Although,_ on second thought, _they’re probably lurking in the shadows, cameras on._

When they pass through the lawn and arrive at the front steps, Kuroo is unexpectedly the one to answer the door.

“You don’t have any paparazzi around here,” says Atsumu.

“Is this how you’re greeting me?” Kuroo says, over the distant noises of people shuffling around and cheering from inside. “I had some friends chase them away earlier. Can’t have them disturb my guests.”

“Course you did,” says Atsumu. “I brought wine.”

“ _Katsunuma_ wine?” says Kuroo, beaming at the bottle in Atsumu’s outstretched hand. “How generous. So this is your bodyguard, huh?”

Sakusa nods at him, curt. Kuroo stares, eyes flicking between the two of them, before a wicked grin spreads across his face.

“Happy early birthday,” says Atsumu quickly, before Kuroo can comment on anything. “Just a heads-up, I will _not_ be participatin’ in anythin’ illegal that goes down tonight.”

“Seriously,” says Kuroo, half-amused. “What kinda person do you think I am? I’ll have you know that I’m friends with a very respectable policeman.”

“That makes you sound so much sketchier.”

“Why did I invite you,” Kuroo laments.

“My good looks,” says Atsumu, “and charmin’ personality, of course,” which earns him a look of utter disgust.

“Be glad you’re friends with my friends,” Kuroo says, albeit amiably, and guides them in.

Atsumu had expected there to be a lot of people, but he’s still surprised by the sheer populace that is Kuroo’s friends. 

One floor up, and the vast space of the living room is packed sardine-tight, people milling around in merry chatter. Inconsequent friendly conversations, canapés, wine. Atsumu only knows about one-fourth of everyone there, but it doesn’t take long for him to flit around and chat, thriving on the chance to be social without people fawning over him.

 _I have my friends here,_ Atsumu had said, after one glance at Sakusa. _It’s safe. Ya don’t have to follow me around._

It’s how he ends up floundering through the crowd, wading from person to person, the cursory freedom of speaking to strangers he trusts lifting him light. Kuroo’s circle of friends impressively ranges from a skyscraper of a half-Russian model, to a supposedly infamous YouTuber-CEO-gamer, to an… eccentric elementary school teacher. Atsumu has no idea where Kuroo finds all these people, but in any case he’s enjoying himself.

Despite that, in the end, the bitter taste of wine is astringent on his tongue, the buzz of it wandering his mind back to search for Sakusa in the crowded space. He’s nowhere in sight. Which comes as no surprise, given that Bokuto and Hinata are trying to duet at the top of their lungs in the centre of the room. The singing is undoubtedly good, but gosh, they’re loud. Even the ever-so-patient Akaashi has to scurry away to the kitchen in the name of peace.

But Atsumu knows where to find Sakusa. With Bokuto and Hinata’s voices a filtered droning in his ears, he flounders through the gauzy curtains of a doorway and finds himself on an empty balcony, the night air rushing over him like a splash of cold water to his face.

The commotion behind him is muffled, like the distant murmur of traffic, and the inside lights eclipse shadows over the stone-made floor. The balcony is more spacious than he thought—humongous compared to the average-sized door. It takes him a moment to spot Sakusa, standing on the far right, away from view of anyone looking through the windows inside. He stands, his back to Atsumu, seemingly taking in the view of the quiet night.

Atsumu makes his way over to the balcony railing, the relief of being alone with Sakusa fresh on his skin, and breathes deep.

“What’re you doin’?”

It’s like Sakusa knows what his footsteps sound like, because he doesn’t start when he glances over.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” says Sakusa. “I’m emoting into the night.”

The dry delivery makes Atsumu laugh. “Fair enough.”

“What’re you doing?” asks Sakusa.

“Well,” says Atsumu, running a hand through the hair on the back of his head. “There’s this guy inside who keeps talkin’ ‘bout his girlfriend. Mika-chan this, Mika-chan that, Mika-chan fuckin’ _everywhere_. Makes me wanna punch him.”

“You’re bothered by this,” says Sakusa, “even though you _never_ shut up?”

“Like repulses like.”

Sakusa gives him a look. “You reek also, Miya,” he says. “How many drinks have you had?”

Atsumu holds up three fingers. “Four.”

“…Okay.” 

“I’m kiddin’.” Atsumu grins. “I can hold my liquor.”

A lick of wind comes cresting over the railing, catches in Atsumu’s hair and tickles his skin. He relishes in the sensation of fresh air filling his lungs, of the crisp smell of trees and water from the dainty lawn that the balcony overlooks.

Sakusa’s wearing a black suit as usual, but his tie is rather loose, the first button of his shirt unclasped. He gazes straight ahead, past the grass on the barely-lit lawn and through the even spaces of the gates, the dark of his eyes like night. And gosh, how whipped Atsumu is, staring at him as if trying to imprint the image forever in the recesses of his mind. Wishing for a way to freeze the flow of time.

He’d be a coward. An idiot, really, to not try.

“Hey, Omi.”

Sakusa tears his eyes away from the lawn and looks at him.

“I have a question for you,” says Atsumu, shifting his feet.

His stomach is doing uncontrollable flips now; his fingers jittery from nerves. But Atsumu doesn’t exactly like dancing around subjects, too crass and restless to tip-toe.

“D’ya have a crush on anyone?”

Sakusa’s expression, half-hidden by the mask, hardens. Atsumu almost balks— _just kiddin’, Omi, I just wanted to tease_ —but decides to stand his ground. He _has_ to be sure. If the man in the postcard is someone who matters, then—

“Why are you asking?” says Sakusa.

“You're not answerin’,” says Atsumu.

Sakusa hesitates. But the pause lengthens impossibly, the silence that falls over them too unbearable for Atsumu to wait. The erratic hammering of his heart against his chest—this sort of nerve-wracking fear—is not something he cares to feel.

“’Kay, fuck this,” he says. “Do you like _me?_ ”

Sakusa’s eyes widen this time, a genuine look of surprise ( _and is that also panic that Atsumu reads?)_ flashing over his face, before it turns back to something untranslatable.

“Again, Miya,” he says slowly, carefully. “Why do you ask?”

“Just answer the question, Omi-kun,” says Atsumu. “And you know what kinda ‘like’ I’m talkin’ about. Do you like me?”

Sakusa keeps his eyes on him for a long moment, calculating and impassive, searching for something. But in the end he drops his gaze.

“No,” he says. “I don’t.”

Atsumu isn’t that much of an idiot to not expect a rejection, but it hurts him all the same.

The churning in his stomach dies down now, giving way to a stifled emptiness. Sakusa doesn’t lie. In all the time he has known him, Sakusa has never lied—his nature too blunt for falsity.

From inside, something like glass shattering sounds, followed by muted laughter and cheers.

“If I had said yes,” says Sakusa, “what would you have done?”

Atsumu looks up, stares into the black depths of eyes that he has always found comfort in.

 _You don’t even like me,_ he thinks, _but I may have fallen in love with you._ Isn’t that funny. The confession tries to tear itself out of him, scratching up to a lump at his throat, the ache of it too awful for him to endure alone. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but I may have fallen in love with you._

But Atsumu braves it. Bleeds out a smile. “Would’ve been weird, Omi-kun,” he says blithely. “Our relationship is professional, after all.”

Sakusa’s expression doesn’t change. He only stands, hands in his pockets, and averts his eyes towards the grass thirty feet below them.

“I’m going to the washroom,” he says simply, and leaves.

Atsumu doesn’t watch him go. The fading sound of his footsteps is cruel enough for him to force down the gush of tears. He glares hard at the floor, the wind cold against his cheeks, and tries to stop himself from crying. Even after he hears the door close—knows that Sakusa isn’t here to witness it—he can’t bear himself to look up.

“That was nice to watch.”

A chill runs down his spine.

The voice is unfamiliar. Atsumu looks up, his fight-or-flight response heightened, and locates the shifting of shadows in front of him. It’s a moment before the figure—no, _figures_ —appear, sardonic smiles across their faces.

 _They were hiding behind a corner of the wall,_ Atsumu realizes, mentally berating himself. _That’s why we didn’t see 'em._

There are three of them. Three men somewhere in their twenties and thirties—one with a small scar on the side of his forehead, one with an angry, predacious aura around his overweight frame. Something pokes at the back of Atsumu’s mind, probing at his memory until he recognizes exactly who they are.

It must’ve shown on his face, because one of them—the middle one, a young man in his early twenties with a shaved head—grins, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Remember us, don’t you?”

He’s forgotten their names. But if Atsumu recalls correctly, all three of them are ( _were?_ ) singers whose music he had deemed to be awful. Which—following that train of logic—means that he must have insulted them in some form or another.

“What do you want?” he demands, his instincts on high alert.

“Were you hoping he would say yes to liking you?” one of them taunts, feigning sympathy. “We saw the look on your face when he was walking away. How sad.”

“Really, now,” says Atsumu. “You're gangin’ up on me here? In public?”

“That damn bodyguard of yours never leaves your side,” the angry-looking one snarls. “But no worries. No one will see you here.”

Fuck. It’s true. Where they are on the balcony is not directly in view of any of the windows or the door, none of the living room lights able to shed over them. And with the commotion from inside, there’s no way anyone would be able to hear him scream for help. Not that he would, in all honesty, proud as he is.

They’re closing in on him now, three sides blocking any escape, backing him up against the railing. Identical cheshire grins spread across their faces, creepy as can be.

“Don’t even try to scream,” one of them says. “We have someone on the look-out. No one can help you.”

“How the hell didja get in here?” Atsumu growls.

“You ruined our reputations, you know,” the bald one says, voice rising with pent-up rage. “No producers wanted to work with us when you said our music was shit. We idolized Kageyama too, and you slandered him. You must really enjoy kicking people down, you heartless son of a bitch.”

“I don’t see Tobio-kun’s career takin’ a tumble,” says Atsumu. “He improved. If you can’t take criticism, you're not fit for this industry.”

One of them—with the scar—stomps over in quick strides and grabs Atsumu by the collar, yanking him violently close until Atsumu can smell the disgusting alcohol on his breath.

“Well then, Miya Atsumu,” he whispers, “I hope you enjoyed all the photos.”

Atsumu’s eyes widen. A flare of heat—angry-hot—rushes over his entire body, his thoughts zeroing in on a distinct realization.

“ _You_ ,” he breathes out. “You're the one with all the death threats.”

The man punches him right below his diaphragm, hard and fast, and Atsumu’s mind almost blanks from the staggering pain of it. He doubles over, one knee on the ground, and coughs.

Fingers roughly grab his chin and jerks him up. In the near darkness, the man’s leer looks horribly sadistic, a flicker of glee in his eyes.

“You managed to piss off the wrong people, Miya Atsumu,” he says, almost cheerily. “Our careers have already gone down the drain. We have nothing to lose.”

“Yeah, well,” Atsumu chokes out, “you managed to catch me while I’m in a bad mood,” and clocks him as hard as he can.

Atsumu’s fist collides with him just under the cheekbone, a little lower than he’d aimed, but the dull throb in his knuckles is a satisfying thrill.

What comes next seems to happen in a trance. He stands, the adrenaline coursing through him like a cool flood of mint and winter air, and lands another punch on the bald one. It only manages to reel the man back a few steps, a hand clutching over his mouth, before he charges again and hits Atsumu across the face. There’s a low snarl beside him, and in a split second something collides with his side—at the exact spot where the bruise is—and Atsumu stumbles to the floor.

Three against one was impossible for him to win in a fist fight from the start. He can taste the blood in his mouth, metallic on his tongue, and almost shrinks in on himself whenever a new surge of pain swells over his side, his thigh, his arm, his cheeks—

Three against one is impossible for him to win, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t give them a good fight. One kick to the right, one punch to the left, one knee to someone’s chin—and Atsumu smirks with satisfaction as all three of them become winded, hair dishevelled.

But the satisfaction doesn’t last for long.

Something seems to snap in the man with the scar when he catches the look on Atsumu’s face. He moves in, and suddenly Atsumu is hauled upwards by the front of his shirt.

“Hey,” one of the other guys says, alarmed, “wait, Shou—”

Atsumu feels himself being pushed backwards. His fingers try to pry open the iron clutch of the man’s hold, but it does nothing as his feet are lifted above the ground, the back of his calves brushing up against a cold surface.

 _I’m danglin' over the railin',_ he realizes, fraught, the terror rising in his throat at the dangerous pull of gravity. _He’s gonna drop me over the balcony._

Through the roaring of blood in his ears, he can hear a different, unfamiliar shout—something like a warning. Atsumu turns his head.

In the brief moment before the man releases his grip on Atsumu, his eyes fall on Sakusa, standing much too far away from them, staring in shock. There’s a look of pure distraught on his face, his eyes wide with panic.

“ _MIYA!_ ”

The scream cuts through the air, horrified and desperate, and Atsumu starts to fall.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the rowdy living room, Kuroo sips his celebratory Katsunuma wine, blissfully unaware. 
> 
> The transcendent @dazzletwig drew an amazing wonderful perfect [fanart on twitter](https://twitter.com/DazzleTwig/status/1319766682865467397?s=20) for a scene in this chapter. Please send dazzle all your love!!!
> 
> I haven't said this much, but pls know that I always ALWAYS appreciate you guys! Thank you so much for reading!!!! Life has been busy but I’m trying to keep my updates within 2 weeks of each other. If you ever want to talk in the meantime I have a smol twitter account [@cielelyse2](https://twitter.com/cielelyse2) :)
> 
>  **(28 Feb 2021) Edit:** @mon_hq also drew a stunning [fanart](https://twitter.com/mon_hq/status/1356103434978557956) for a scene in this chapter that absolutely melted my entire being. Thank you thank you, you angel!!!!


	7. Sakusa

“Do you like me?”

Sakusa panics.

Do I—of course I—but what can I tell you that would evade us a landmine. _He always ends up cutting ties with them_ , but I want to stay by your side, I want to stay by your side, and Sakusa is careful, so wouldn’t denial be the safest course of action with the risk of loss this high, because what if he says the wrong thing, the true thing, and Atsumu fires him, laughs at him, the utter sincerity of it a joke, something to be pitied at—

_You poor thing, Omi-kun. You poor thing._

“No,” he says.

.

Water pours from the bright brass tap. The cold force of it stings his palm, pushing strong against his skin. Sakusa lets it hurt; lifts his head up to stare at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

_Our relationship is professional, after all._

He has the urge to swing his arm through it, feel the crack of glass in its spiderweb ripple. How pathetic was he, the tangy lie acidic on his tongue. Of course. Of course they’re professionals. It’s been made clear, hasn’t it, that there isn’t anything palpable between them when Atsumu had sent him away, slept with someone else, smiled and said—

.

There is someone blocking the entrance to the balcony.

“Move,” says Sakusa.

The man is smaller, shorter, shakier, but he purposefully stares Sakusa down, his lower lip quivering between his teeth.

“Kuroo told me not to let anyone out,” he says. “It’s closed for the night.”

 _Who the hell closes a balcony,_ thinks Sakusa. What a blatant lie. He glances quickly over his shoulder to where Kuroo is, lounging on the wide linen of his couch, a glass of dark red wine in his hand, laughing at something Bokuto does.

“Unless he’s planning a mass murder,” says Sakusa, and before he can finish the sentence his intuition kicks in, thrashes against his gut into a brawl of dread in his stomach. Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong.

“Sakusa-san?” comes Akaashi’s voice, somewhere behind him. “What—”

“ _Move_ ,” demands Sakusa, placing his hand on the man’s (disgusting, disgusting even through the gloves) shoulder, and pushes.

.

There is a moment, as Atsumu’s eyes fall on him, when Sakusa feels the unprecedented freeze of his own body, all the gears locked out of place. The fright in Atsumu’s eyes is enough to break him, because Atsumu’s not afraid, there’s nothing in the damn world he’s afraid of—

_“MIYA!”_

_It’ll happen in slow motion_ , the movies tell you. But as the man uncurls his fingers and releases his grip on Atsumu’s collar, there isn’t any extension of time that saves Sakusa the shock. Atsumu’s eyes widen, his hands struggling to grasp at the railing, but he’s too far out, he’s too far, and as he disappears over the balcony Sakusa feels the sweep of ground under him give up.

Everything becomes a little unclear. He can hear Akaashi’s voice behind him, drowned out as if from underwater, and there are other voices too, from inside but getting nearer, louder, and one of the men before him is screaming to the scar-faced one, _why the fuck did you do that_.

Sakusa runs, the stretch from where he is to the railing like the goddamn green mile. But he makes it: puts his hands on the cold steel and looks over, down.

Atsumu is not on the ground beneath him. For a wild, bloodstained moment, Sakusa thinks that perhaps his brain is not capable of handling the truth.

But then he sees Atsumu. He’s dangling three feet below, the fingers of both of his hands straining on a part of the wall that juts out. His arms are shaking from the pull of gravity, his head bowed in obvious pain.

“ _Miya!_ ” Sakusa shouts, trying to breathe. If Atsumu falls from this height, it’ll still—

Something behind him shifts.

It’s all instinct, really, that gets Sakusa to react. That familiar movement of air that signifies an oncoming fist. All those years of boxing, and the avoidance of punches is like the pull of your leg from a plexor to the knee. He steps back, dodges, the fist flying past his cheek with the hateful force of it, and comes face-to-face with a scar of a man—the one who dropped—

“No! Shou, we have to _run_ ,” one of the other ones yells. “We have to—”

The man glares at them. “I’m not letting them pull this sonuvabitch up!”

“Akaashi!” shouts Sakusa.

Akaashi, bless him, has already sprinted towards the balcony edge. In the biting chill of the night, Sakusa feels the anger warm and coil inside him, coming to a boil. _Calm down,_ he tells himself. _Calm down._

And then the man’s face contorts into a delighted leer.

It was rage that made me do it, your honour. Rage, fear, stress. The imminent taste of grief. Sakusa’s fist comes down on him with a _crack_ , knuckles against the lines of his mouth where it hurts, the scraping of his teeth rough against his glove. The man makes a pained noise at the back of his throat and buckles down onto the ground. The fucking vermin.

It was an unnecessary punch.

 _Ten_ _seconds, Miya_.

Two quick steps, and Sakusa is behind him. One arm wrapped around his neck, his wind pipe in the crook of Sakusa’s elbow, one hand on the back of the bastard’s head. Tighten. Restrict the blood flow until they pass out. _Six, seven, eight, nine, ten_ : the man goes limp against him.

“Miya!” he shouts. There’s a commotion around them now—voices filtered out like interstellar noise—but all Sakusa can register is the sight of Akaashi leaning over the railing, his jacket firm in his hands and extending down, tightly stretched. “Miya, are you okay?”

“ _Fuckin’ shit_!” Atsumu’s voice yells from below. “ _I’m gonna kill those slimy goddamn stupid dipshit motherfuckers_!”

 _He’s okay._ A feather-white surge of relief washes over Sakusa, his legs almost giving in from the tonnage of anxiety that’s suddenly lifted off of him.

“Miya-san!” says Akaashi. “Hang on to the jacket please, and I need you to put one leg up onto that—no, not—over there, yes, _that_.”

“ _Are you kiddin’ me_?” yells Atsumu. “ _What am I,_ _a trapeze artist_?”

“You’ll have to if you want me to pull you up,” Akaashi insists.

_He’s okay._

_He’s okay, but—_

It’s sort of hazy, in a way, when you’re flung in an internal storm of chaos, the uncontrollableness of everything around you prickling an itch on your skin. The recalcitrance of all you can’t hold down. Sakusa doesn’t remember who has started running out to the balcony; only that there is a blur of shapes and static voices. He doesn’t remember who has screamed _don’t let them run away,_ and _get Daichi_ , and _can somebody call 119_ ; only that the other two bastards are grabbed by the arm and pinned down. He doesn’t remember how Akaashi manages to pull Atsumu up; only that there’s fear. Fear when he stands and meets Atsumu’s eyes, more amber than brown in the cold night air.

Atsumu looks livid. Angry; ready to pounce. But as his legs hit the stone floor and his eyes fall on Sakusa, all the exhaustion seems to seep back into him, his feral rage dissolving.

“ _Omi_ ,” he says, voice worn. “Ow, fuck.”

Atsumu sways on his feet, wincing. As he braces his bare palm at the railing for balance and staggers to the ground, Sakusa can make out the blood at a corner of his mouth, his tattered shirt, unkempt hair. A wide redness on his cheek where he was punched.

Sakusa doesn’t remember making the conscious decision to kneel beside Atsumu and pull him into a hug. Only that it’s Atsumu—Atsumu’s solid heat against him, warm body to warm body, grounded, breathing. Alive. 

Atsumu goes still. If Sakusa hadn’t built himself on the grounds of being attentive, he might have missed the small hitch of breath.

Sakusa buries his nose in the soft crook of Atsumu’s neck. He won’t hear anything, won’t see anything; only letting himself _feel_. And hell, how vile it is, to press his hand on the vital arch of someone’s back like this, to tangle his fingers in someone’s hair, their skin just clothes away from one another. How disgusting. How absolutely revolting, Sakusa thinks, but god, if he lets go—if he lets go—

“Omi-kun?” says Atsumu, his voice strange. “Omi-kun. You're shakin’.”

_He’s okay._

Sakusa moves away. Untangles himself and instantly feeling empty. Atsumu’s eyes are bright, wide with gentle surprise.

There are people teeming behind them now; Sakusa’s instinctive aversion to crowd senses it. A roaring din. Akaashi is calming someone behind them, astute enough to ask them for space. Someone is on the phone, panicked and yabbering at 119. Someone is interrogating.

Sakusa doesn’t quite trust the level of his voice when he says, “Where does it hurt?”

Atsumu makes a sound like scoffing. “Kinda everywhere?” he says, attempting to smile but wincing instead. “These dickheads. Some piece of shit karma, huh?”

Sakusa can’t tear his stare away from the missing button at the top of Atsumu’s shirt, at the rash and cuts on his knuckles, at the small smears of blood—and only if he can go back there again, smash their heads against the granite stone, punch unto them all the blinding tremor in himself, over and over and over again until the iron smell of blood engulfs him, because how dare they, _how fucking dare they_.

Sakusa doesn’t know what kind of face he’s making right now, but whatever it is, Atsumu sees it and says, “Hey, I’m all right.”

Sakusa focuses back on him.

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu says. “I’m all right.”

And—as if deciding that Sakusa willingly hugging him seconds before is enough to warrant a touch—tentatively takes Sakusa’s hand and guides it towards his neck.

Sakusa flinches, more out of shock. _What the hell are you doing, Miya,_ he nearly says, but as his thumb rests over the front of Atsumu’s throat—in the exposed indent between his collarbones—there is a pulse there, evident. The loudest part of his body now to feel it. A wholly vulnerable place.

“Don’t—freak out,” says Atsumu. “I know you freak out when you lose control of somethin’.”

 _This is ridiculous,_ a part of Sakusa says, but the steady rhythm of a pulse is reminding him to breathe. A sign of life that’s soothing him to calm. Telling him, _I’m all right,_ and no one else can hear.

How incomprehensible it is, he thinks, to hate a touch so much for its uncleanliness but want it just as bad. If only he has enough ease. _Let me stay,_ a larger part of him pleads. _Don’t pull yourself away from me._

“Omi,” says Atsumu.

Sakusa could cry.

Just then, Atsumu’s phone rings. The trill of it startles Sakusa, his hand jerking away.

“Oh,” says Atsumu, something dawning on him. Without looking at the caller, or even away from Sakusa, he lets out a weak laugh. “Yeah, it’s a twin thing.”

.

“You're stupid,” says Osamu. “You're so fuckin’ stupid.”

“Uch,” says Atsumu.

“That foul mouth of yours,” snaps Osamu.

A dewdrop on a leaf. Sakusa stands by the doorway of the room, the polished glass windows beside him, watching the dewdrop trickle down to the tip of the leaf, its weight too insignificant to foster any movement, and falls.

The sunlight drenches the hospital room in gold. It’s the next morning.

It had been a little terrifying, knowing that Osamu had called in the midst of chaos last night just because he merely _sensed_ that something was wrong. _Someone tried to kill me,_ Atsumu had said teasingly when he picked up, and had to then move the phone far away from his ear to avoid hearing damage.

It was too frenzied last night for Sakusa to clearly recall much else. The ambulance arrived a little less promptly than he’d liked, but in the end it didn’t matter. Atsumu’s injuries weren’t fatal. The emergency responders brought him into the ambulance anyway, to be safe, and Sakusa had taken the wheel in the driver’s seat of his car, tailing in the night behind it with Akaashi, Bokuto, and Hinata in the backseat.

Which was a horrible idea. Bokuto and Hinata had been agitated, unable to sit still. Akaashi had to repeatedly remind them that Atsumu was most likely completely fine, and if they could please calm down and let Sakusa concentrate on driving. _I AM CALM,_ Bokuto had yelled, and Hinata looked like he didn’t know what to do with his face.

It didn’t take long to wait outside the patient room. Thirty minutes passed before the doctor— _Shirabu_ , Sakusa noted with a glance at the name tag—had come out and told them, _He needs some stitches, but he’s fine. He’s unlucky that one of them had a ring. But he’s also pretty fortunate, because any more and his ribs would’ve been bruised._

 _Is he really okay?_ Hinata asked. _Can we see him?_

Shirabu eyed Hinata impassively, but Sakusa knew he had recognized all three of them. He’s either too uncaring, or too respectful to say so. _The strain of hanging off the balcony with all those injuries took its toll, so he’s asleep with some painkillers now,_ said Shirabu. _But yes._

They had stayed by his bedside until Osamu burst in, an hour later. It took a while of convincing to persuade Bokuto and Hinata that them being there would not help, and that they had things to do in the morning, and either Osamu or Sakusa would notify them of Atsumu’s condition, whenever he wakes. Akaashi almost had to drag them out, the poor guy.

And before Sakusa could say anything, Osamu had looked at him, irritated, and said, _I don’t blame ya_. He pointed to an unconscious Atsumu. _I blame that turd over there._

So here they are. Nine a.m. at the hospital with the birdsong outside quieting, the sun rays canting in from the east. Sakusa stands by the doorway, hands in his pockets. Osamu sits on a chair, one leg up on the bed frame.

And Kita, who arrived twenty minutes before Atsumu woke up, stands leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. His face is a mask of tranquility.

“That foul mouth of yours,” says Osamu. “I’ve toldja it’s a problem. At least now I have a better chance of dyin’ happier, but fuck, ‘Tsumu.”

“No way you’re gonna die happier,” says Atsumu. “Not gonna happen.”

“You're stupid,” Osamu repeats. “You don’t listen to anyone.”

“Well, you’ve never told me it was a problem,” says Atsumu. “All you said was ‘I swear on my soul I’d never become like you’.”

“ _And that doesn’t tell you it’s a problem?_ ” says Osamu.

“Enough,” says Kita. Both of them turn to look at him. He stares at Atsumu, unblinking, gaze unmoving, and Atsumu fidgets.

“Look,” says Kita, “it’s done. They’ve all been arrested. But you have to know that that was very dangerous, Atsumu. That man with the scar was actin' all out of emotion, and it’s because you insulted him.”

“I was just callin’ it like I see it,” Atsumu mutters.

“Well,” says Kita. “Didja _need_ to call him a dumbass fuckup that amounts to nothin' more than a piece of trash in the gutter and should go back home to his failed marriage? No, not really. Didja _need_ to say that the best thing he’s done for the industry is to consider leavin' it? Also no, not really. So sure, you were ‘callin' it like you see it’, but it definitely could’ve been better worded.”

Atsumu shrinks in on himself.

“He was arrogant,” he mumbles, although his tone clearly shows that he knows he’s in the wrong. “I lost my temper. He acted like he was better than everyone. Would’ve stepped on people to get his way.”

“That’s actually true,” Osamu supplies.

“But that’s not the point,” says Kita. “As I said, better worded.”

“Sorry.” Atsumu sighs. “Kuroo has too many friends.”

Kuroo. Kuroo—who had stopped by sometime between four and five a.m. to check in. Sakusa was impressed that he was able to hold his stance and tongue, laid-back and articulate, even with the high amount of alcohol in him.

Apparently his friend—someone named Daichi—had taken them to the police station and let them be dealt with. It turns out that the three men frequented Black Jackals, and supposedly seemed nice enough that Kuroo wanted to help out. Since they were struggling in the music industry, he figured it would be doing them a favour to invite them to the party. _You know,_ he explained, _‘cause there were big names there, like Miya and Bokuto and Chibi-chan, and Kageyama and Meian and Hoshiumi and_ —

Sakusa and Osamu had both given him disdainful looks.

 _What,_ Kuroo had said. _It’s not my fault I’m good at making connections._

“It’s not Tetsurou’s fault,” says Kita. “This could have been avoided, Atsumu.”

“Yeah,” says Atsumu sheepishly. “Well. But—but on the upside, I’m still good! I can still sing and play.” He wiggles his fingers. “See?”

 _That’s not what you should care about,_ thinks Sakusa.

“That’s not what you should care about,” says Osamu. “Dummy.”

“Honestly, they were idiots,” says Atsumu hotly. “If they really wanted to hurt me, they should’ve broken my fingers.”

“They _did_ really want to hurt you,” says Kita. “They dropped you off a _balcony_.”

“I’m sorry,” Sakusa blurts out.

They all turn to him, surprised. Even with the mask and gloves and abundance of clothing as shield, Sakusa tries his hardest to not hang his head.

It had been his fault. Clearly. Inopportune timing, one could say, but he should never have left in the first place. Should never have let his own anguish abandon a half-finished job, every open wound his own doing. The consequences, his.

But Sakusa’s self-blame is not a consensus shared with, apparently, everyone else.

“C’mon,” Atsumu starts to say.

“Kiyoomi,” says Kita, gentle as can be. “It’s all right. I know you did all you can.”

“I should’ve been there,” says Sakusa.

“You should have,” says Kita. “But it’s okay. It’s good that you were there in the end. We’re all mortals, after all.”

Sakusa chances a glance up. Kita and Osamu wear similar forgiving expressions, their irk not once directed at him. But Atsumu—he can’t, can’t look at Atsumu, because how could you watch someone who was evitably hurt by your own choices and not feel guilt? Not feel a roiling unmooredness in your gut? Nothing worse than pity; yet here he is.

“Kiyoomi,” says Kita. “I’m not gonna fire you.”

Sakusa doesn’t answer. Doesn’t know how to.

“Would you mind,” Kita continues, “giving the three of us a moment, actually?”

“Kita-san,” begins Atsumu.

“It’s nothin' serious,” says Kita.

Sakusa nods. Even as he walks through the door and closes it behind him with a soft _click_ , he doesn’t meet Atsumu’s eyes.

Mortification, is what he feels. Abashed with the guilt that snakes in his insides, sucking all his energy dry. He should’ve known better than to think that he could place a hermetic seal between himself and catastrophe, when any one of a million things could go wrong. Try as he might to be careful, it’ll never assure anything.

The hospital hallway stretches to the reception and past that, the floor ecru and the walls white. People mill around under the milky brightness of fluorescent lights, busy, their shoes squeaky against the tiles. Sakusa had expected the hospital to smell either like antiseptic chemicals or a mix of blood and sickness, but it mostly smells like flowers.

He leans against the wall, faces a row of windows to the smoking area outside. The television that hangs near the ceiling is projecting something about new scientific discoveries from Hyogo, its vague din of static noises dismissed in his ears.

“Room B13,” someone says.

Sakusa turns his head. It’s a woman, somewhere in her mid-twenties, her jacket hanging far past her skirt. She regards him curiously.

“Room B13,” she says, pointing to the nailed sign on the door. “That’s Miya Atsumu’s room, isn’t it?”

Sakusa doesn’t recognize her. “What business do you have?”

“What business do I have,” she echoes, looking like she might laugh. “Don’t be so serious. I was at the party. Here.”

She extends her arm, holding out a plastic bag tied up into a compact knot.

“He left his coat,” she says. “And Hinata bought him some get-well pickled plums. Can you relay this to him? I don’t personally know Miya very well.”

Sakusa eyes the bag suspiciously.

The woman gives him a look. “You can check its contents, if you like.” 

Sakusa takes it, fingers twining between the rabbit ears of the bag in his hands. It weighs as heavy as a coat should.

“You’re the bodyguard, aren’t you?” she asks.

It’s a simple question, really, but Sakusa squirms nonetheless. As inadequate as he feels right now, saying yes seems like a farce.

It was bad luck. Of course it was. Sakusa had learned in all his twenty-four years of being that it simply just is, sometimes. No one has the crystal balls to predict these kinds of things. There isn’t much anyone can do, us victims of happenstance. Of course.

But dammit—the blood on Atsumu’s knuckles, the jagged edges of his injuries. The bruises that’s started to form. It’s one thing for bad luck to fall on yourself, but it’s another thing for it to fall on someone you’d raise hell for. With the scapegoat of himself to blame, it’s an easier pill to swallow. Because how is Sakusa supposed to accept this so-called misfortune, when the person affected is someone he would take things apart for, willingly, fervidly, smoke on the horizon and all? It terrifies him, in all honesty. Some circumstantial bullshit.

On the television screen, a meteorite tears through the night, its tail a stroke of paint against the sky. Sakusa looks away.

 _Pay proper care and attention to everything_. But god, how this one mistake unravelled him, turned him into someone lost, someone with the capacity for regret.

“Okay,” the woman says. She seems to take his silence as a _yes_. “So what if you messed up?”

Sakusa shrugs, one-shoulder. He doesn’t feel like conversing right now.

“Look,” she says carefully. “Are you going to get fired?”

He looks up, out through the window. Someone is taking a drag of their cigarette, the cherry of it glowing, probably sizzling like a drop of water in a scalding pan. The smoke curls around them like incense, like a soothsayer’s chant.

“No,” he says, a bit rueful. “I suppose I’m lucky.”

“Then you still have a job to protect him,” she says. “Do you have any time to waste looking down?”

Sakusa looks at her.

She smiles, eyes dark and kind against her silky black hair. And he will always remember—even much, much later—that she had been twiddling with the ring on her finger when she tells him, “Chin up.”

.

Atsumu’s discharged the next day.

The doctor comes in for a final check and decides that there is indeed nothing so serious as to require an extended hospital stay. They head back home, bags of get-well gifts and bouquets of flowers in the trunk of their car. Less than forty-eight hours under medical care, and Atsumu had already received too many unsanitary products both from friends and fans. It makes Sakusa break out in hives.

 _We’ve caught the person behind all those death threats,_ Kita had told him when he stepped back into the room, _but I’d like you to stay with him a while longer, just to be sure._

If it had been earlier, Sakusa would’ve asked why Kita still trusts him. But he only said, _I’ll be careful,_ and Kita had smiled.

So the two of them drive back to Atsumu’s house, the ride knee-deep in silence. The air is brittle between them, tense like a cord pulled taut. Sakusa—still with the remnants of guilt twisting in him—avoids speech like the plague and instead watches the world roll past, buildings and people constructed around him and vanishing a moment later. There will be time, later, for that.

They pull up to a stop outside the gates, not a word exchanged. Sakusa can feel Atsumu studying him, intense and unsubtle, as he takes things out of the trunk and they make their way inside.

The walls of Atsumu’s home. Two days away like a decade. It’s peculiar, coming back to the grandiose space of the house, its garden bending to winter’s will, its furniture kept pristine as if something daunting hadn’t happened. Sakusa carries the bags of goods from the trunk and sets them, with a heavy _thump_ , onto the living room table. Everything is as it was.

Atsumu stands next to him, bandages around his arms, his hands, under the hem of his shirt.

“You haven’t looked at me once, Omi-kun,” he says, “ever since the hospital. Hey.”

Sakusa wipes the minimal amount of dust from his hands. Swallows a lodge in his throat.

But before he can turn back and answer, Atsumu pops in from the left side of his vision, his weight leaned completely on one leg. “Omi,” he yips.

Just like that, he circles behind Sakusa as Sakusa tries to face him, left and right, right and left, a child-like glint in his eyes. Dodging and then appearing again with, “Omi, Omi, Omi, _Omi Omi Omi_.”

“Jesus Christ,” says Sakusa. “Can you stay still?”

“I was tryin’ to get you to look at me,” says Atsumu.

“Then stop giving me vertigo, idiot.”

Atsumu grins, a nick of triumph on his face. And it’s with a soft, sudden flow of warmth inside him that Sakusa realizes Atsumu was trying to cheer him up.

“We’re good,” says Atsumu. _Don’t apologize; let’s go back to how things were_ , is what Sakusa deciphers.

Back to how things were. _Back to how things were._ There is much more of what Sakusa would like them to be. Would want them to be. _But I’ll be satisfied_ , in full confession, _to just listen to you play._

“I’m _hungry_ ,” says Atsumu, sauntering over to the fridge. Its door swings open with a low _pop_ , and he pulls out a glass container sealed tight.

Sakusa watches as Atsumu opens it and starts munching on what appears to be a shitty version of fried rice. Given that it’s been languishing away on the refrigerator shelf for days, and given that it hasn’t even seen the light of the microwave, Atsumu’s eating it like it’s the tastiest thing in the world.

“Here,” Atsumu says ungainly through a mouthful of rice, gesturing to the sad cold food. “You have to try this. It’s real good. C’mon.”

“Did your brother make it?” asks Sakusa.

“Nah,” says Atsumu. “I cooked it myself, from scratch.”

“Then no,” says Sakusa.

“My brother made it,” says Atsumu.

“You didn’t even heat it up,” says Sakusa, but gently, “you fucking hooligan.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes, but his mouth quirks upwards slightly. He gulps down the last grains of rice, his Adam’s apple sliding against his throat, and sighs contentedly.

When he licks his lips and glances up at Sakusa, a sly smile spreads across his face. “Now you're starin’.”

Sakusa trains his gaze towards the windows.

“It’s fine if you stare,” says Atsumu. “Omi-kun?”

Sakusa looks back at him.

“The thing that happened on the balcony,” Atsumu ventures. “What was that?”

“What was what,” says Sakusa, the heat rising.

“You hugged me,” says Atsumu. If it were any less controlled, Sakusa would’ve missed a hopeful lilt in his voice, as firm as it is fragile. “Didja forget about the germs?”

Sakusa scoffs. “You can’t just ‘forget about the germs’.” 

“Then…” Atsumu trails off, the inflection of the word a question.

Sakusa doesn’t remember making that conscious decision, back on the balcony, to put his arms around Atsumu, to pull their bodies together, scared and desperate. Only that there were tremors. How he shook.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he says quietly.

Atsumu stares at him. Somewhere from outside, the low rumbling of a car flies by, the wind whistling near without chimes. A silence fills in between them, broad and heavy, the air almost thick enough to touch. Sakusa feels his skin crawl.

“Okay,” says Atsumu. “All right.”

Sakusa frowns, and is surprised to see Atsumu walking away, his back retreating towards the stairs.

Sakusa follows suit. The smell of Atsumu’s home—distinct, familiar, something like hearth but fresher than—fills his lungs as they make their way up, step by step, not stopping as they get to the music room door.

Atsumu doesn’t seem to mind that Sakusa had tailed behind him. He just turns the knob and pushes, the hinges creaking.

“Gonna change,” he mumbles, and almost jogs over to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Sakusa stands, resigned, leaning half his weight against a table at a corner and fiddling with the inside fabric of his pocket.

This is where they first met, he notes vaguely. Where they started hating each other. That piano there in the middle, those guitars that hang on the wall. The flecks of dust that dance in the sunlight, curtains billowing like wings.

 _The question that rang on the balcony._ He could’ve been honest. He could’ve said, _yes, Miya,_ and let that rock tumble along the riverbed. But—

“I’ve missed this,” says Atsumu, entering back into the room. He’s donning new clothes and his hair is rather mussed up. “I haven’t played in a long time.”

Atsumu walks over and settles nimbly into the seat of the piano. Like coming back home, he skids a finger along the keys, one leg on a pedal, his movements as easy as falling. It’s sort of strange, to see someone who’s barely capable of exchanging pleasantries on a good day exude this kind of grace.

“Two days,” Sakusa corrects.

“A long time,” Atsumu agrees. There’s a soft look in his eyes. “Y’know,” he continues, “’Samu told me you didn’t sleep a wink.”

Sakusa doesn’t reply.

Atsumu turns to face him. “That night that I was admitted to the hospital,” he says, “’Samu told me you couldn’t sleep, even when he toldja to.”

Sakusa can only bear to look back at him, no faith in his own voice.

“I don’t understand ya,” says Atsumu. “I don’t know what goes on in your head, Omi-kun.”

“What do you want me to say?” asks Sakusa.

“I want you to listen,” says Atsumu. “I don’t—it’s fine if you don’t like me. What I said on the balcony, that was a lie. I say a lot of things I don’t mean when I’m upset.”

Sakusa’s heart quickens. “Our relationship,” he begins, but doesn’t know where to go from there.

“It’s fine if you don’t like me,” Atsumu repeats. “But you have to know—ever since I met you, it’s been—just, everythin’ I’ve written has been for you. You have to know that.”

And Atsumu looks up at him, earnestly, almost heartbreakingly.

Under the sunlight stretching across his face, Atsumu seems sad, something in him like giving up. And Sakusa thinks, _I never realized_.

Something in him shifts course then, pivoting around a lodestar. A comprehension shuddering loose. _Ever since I met you_ , he’d thought, _I don’t know how to keep to myself_. _I’ve wanted you to linger._ But with that he’d missed everything. Atsumu, who had left the club for him, who had sent him away, hurt himself, pressed his hand to the skin on his neck—as selfless as he is young. And I’ve been heedless, Sakusa thinks, a bind of tightness deep in his chest. I was so insistent on keeping my place beside you, so intent on setting the world on fire for you that I never heard you calling my name.

Because no matter what Atsumu is playing for him, Sakusa has always heard a love song.

Atsumu, with the current through him. Every note a caress: _I’ve wanted to linger._ They’ve been going at this the wrong way round, haven’t they.

Sakusa doesn’t remember what exactly makes him move, suddenly, and close the distance between them. Doesn’t remember when his mask is removed.

Only that it’s soft, when he pulls Atsumu in by the neck and presses their lips together.

Atsumu shifts against him.

Sakusa jerks back.

He stares at Atsumu—sitting frozen at the piano, eyes wide—and brings his fingers to his mouth. There’s a trace of mint there— _toothpaste_ —and a much fainter one of rice. It’s a little lurching, if he’s being honest, fighting a vague urge to gag, but there’s also a static brush of something electrifying. Something he’d come back to, again and again.

Sakusa steps back.

Atsumu stands, a little too fast, and his mouth works open wordlessly.

“Stop,” says Sakusa.

Atsumu stills. “But you,” he says. “Omi, uh. That.”

“I kissed you,” says Sakusa.

Atsumu looks stunned. He stares at Sakusa with eyes Sakusa hasn’t ever seen, bright and much younger than a mere minute before.

“Why,” says Atsumu, a little wondrously. “Why did you lie?”

Sakusa is torn, between wiping his mouth and letting the taste there stay for as long as it can. He instead quenches any of the urges, and stares resolutely at Atsumu. “It was lame,” he admits. “I was worried that you would let me go.”

Atsumu lets out a surprised laugh. “That’s funny.”

“Why?”

But Atsumu only smiles, somewhat fond, and takes one step closer.

“I have so many questions,” he says. 

Sakusa stays rooted to the spot, his eyes never leaving Atsumu’s as Atsumu places one foot before the other, tentatively, watchfully, until they are inches away. Sakusa can feel the drumming of his heart, probably too quick to be healthy, and the smell of freshly washed clothes before him.

Atsumu seems suddenly nervous. “Can you—”

 _Kiss me again,_ Sakusa guesses.

“—say my name?”

Sakusa blinks. “Miya.”

“Not that, asshole,” says Atsumu.

It’s getting a bit hard to breathe, what with his heart beating past its fucking speed limit. Heat floods through him, coils in his stomach, warm and complacent.

“Y’know,” Atsumu says, only above a whisper, without hearing his response, “I was worried about how this would work out. I think I still am.”

 _That_. That, Sakusa can understand. You must have been afraid, he thinks, of all the things ahead, for good reason. All that pain you went through, Miya. Only because it’s a lifestyle Sakusa doesn’t know, isn’t yet used to. All that pressure around them, suffocating and relentless, would be like drowning in uncharted waters, terra incognita where the dragons lay. A sinking, maybe.

 _But god_ , Sakusa thinks, staring at the gold in Atsumu’s eyes, _all the things we can be, unshackled from that dread._ The trouble you’re worth, your heap of shattered glass—I can take it all. We can live in a daze of triumph, if we care enough.

Sakusa lifts a hand up, brushing across a lock of hair cascaded over Atsumu’s forehead. He can’t feel it through the gloves, but the strands are soft, surely.

Atsumu shivers.

Sakusa takes it as a _yes please_ , and runs his thumb over the skin on Atsumu’s jawline, right below his ear. He can trace it forever, if he’s allowed.

“Atsumu,” he says, the name rolling off his tongue like honey, like chocolate melting, everything new, “Atsumu.” Sakusa leans in, voice low, his lips almost touching ears. “ _Atsumu_.”

“Okay,” says Atsumu, clearing his throat. “Stop. This is doin’ things to me.”

“How so?”

“To my dick,” says Atsumu.

“Ah,” says Sakusa, not able to keep himself from smirking. “At least take me out to dinner first.”

“Didn’t think traditional romance was your thing,” says Atsumu. 

“It’s not,” Sakusa says, and thinks, _The luck I have_.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next station: Bangtown!


	8. Sakusa

“So,” says Atsumu, “what do you wanna do?”

“With?” says Sakusa.

“Top or bottom.”

“Oh,” says Sakusa. “What do you want?”

“Bottom,” says Atsumu. “Plus, it’s your first time with a guy, right?”

Sakusa stops moving the file across his nails and looks up at him.

In the span of the last two hours since their kiss, Sakusa is almost reeled into dizziness from the number of conversations they’ve had. _So how many people have ya been with?_ —just my ex-girlfriend. _And how many people have ya done it with?_ —just the one. _What, you haven’t hooked up with that guy who works with Tendou Satori? I saw your postcard. What’s up with that, by the way?_ —well, no, of course not, that’s just Wakatoshi-kun. It was a high school crush I had on him, but my cousin somehow found it amusing enough to… hold on, you read my postcard?

And:

I can’t believe you had sex with someone that you didn’t want to— _I mean, at the time I thought that was the only way out, Omi-kun. Didn’t ya feel claustrophobic?_ —I could handle it. We should’ve talked.

And: 

_You're not gonna ask about my history?_ —no. I don’t think I want to hear.

Atsumu stares back at him.

“Good,” says Sakusa. “That works out.”

Atsumu’s grin spreads cheeky. He leans back on his end of the couch, arms strewn lackadaisically over the edge, one leg on Sakusa’s thigh. Through the fabric of his chino pants, the touch is warm.

“So. Tonight,” says Atsumu, “let’s do it.”

“No.”

“What?” Atsumu gapes. “ _Why?_ ”

“Because,” says Sakusa, and points to the bruise on Atsumu’s left cheek. And then again to his ribs, where the bruises are sure to be turning blue, invisible under his shirt.

“Oh, jeez, that’s fine,” says Atsumu. “What, are you afraid of hurtin’ me?”

Well. It isn’t so much hurting him, as it is the unwanted replication of that night that Sakusa was supposed to be on the plane. All of that—for me. Haven’t you had enough? There’s the romantic in Sakusa that whispers, _I want to fuck you so hard you’d end up ruined_ , but another part—louder, truer, much more raw than what romance calls for—says, _I don’t want you to think that I don’t care about your pain._

“Well,” says Sakusa, and tells him exactly that.

“I don’t get it, Omi-kun,” says Atsumu. “What?”

“That, and I also don’t want you to normalize this.”

“I can see how that reasonin’ makes sense,” says Atsumu. “No, wait—I don’t.”

“You’re badly injured, idiot,” says Sakusa, “and could’ve almost died.”

“O…kay?” says Atsumu. “We can have gentle sex, if that’s what you’re worried about. Excuse my language here, but I just really want your co—”

“No,” says Sakusa.

And this is how Atsumu makes, in the span of a week, exactly eighteen attempts at getting Sakusa to sleep with him.

.

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” is his first attempt.

“As much as I want to have sex with you, I'd rather wait until your injuries heal,” says Sakusa, bewildered that he has to explain himself.

“ _What the hell_ ,” Atsumu repeats, bewildered that he has to argue. “D’ya only know one way of sex? Hand jobs! Fellatio! Dry humpin’? Masturbation in front of each other!”

“No means no,” says Sakusa.

“Fuck!” says Atsumu.

.

“Look at all these candles I bought,” is his ninth attempt.

Sakusa is suddenly hit by a pungent smell of wax when he walks into the living room. There are at least a dozen candles there, perched atop every furniture.

“What the hell are these?” says Sakusa, alarmed. “Are we holding a fucking séance?”

“It’s for the mood,” says Atsumu. “Wait, are you not in the mood? I thought you would be in the mood.”

“Atsumu,” says Sakusa. “You’re going to burn the _house down_.”

“Did I accidentally buy the non-scented ones?” wonders Atsumu, grappling for one of the candles. “This is supposed to be romantic!”

“My god,” says Sakusa, and goes to blow out the flames.

.

“Watch me eat this banana,” is his fifteenth attempt.

Which was fated to fail from the start, given that they’re on a food-tasting escapade with Bokuto, at Bokuto’s house.

And Atsumu, with abortive timing, chooses the instance when Bokuto is talking to Sakusa to mouth the words to him. In the igneous shock of the moment, Sakusa barely has time to react before Atsumu peels open the banana and licks along its length.

 _This little shit,_ thinks Sakusa, watching as Atsumu’s tongue traces a vein of fiber up its curve, until it reaches the tip where he takes the whole thing in his mouth, pushing in, devouring it, his eyes never breaking contact. Sakusa almost chokes.

“But yeah! I mean,” says Bokuto, and then Sakusa hears him say what sounds like, “something something mood swings something something something Keiji something he’s the best.”

“What?” Sakusa blinks back to clarity. “I—what?”

Bokuto’s shoulders slump. “You weren’t listening.”

“My bad, come again?” Sakusa says, and shoots Atsumu a death glare. Atsumu only looks back disappointedly, chomping the banana in his mouth.

.

“You’re a sadist,” is his last attempt.

Sakusa turns to look at him. Atsumu drags himself into the kitchen, his morning bed hair scruffy and unkempt.

“It’s ten in the morning,” Sakusa points out.

Atsumu makes a face and waves his hand dismissively. The dust motes scram in every which way, speed across the air until they suspend again, floating slowly back into the weak sunlight.

“Your point?” he says.

Sakusa does feel bad, albeit only slightly. They’ve gone no further than kissing, tongues in each other’s mouths until he decides that it would get out of hand if prolonged any further, and pulls back, away, with all the self-restraint he can muster. Atsumu would always look like he’s going to skin something.

And it’s not like Atsumu’s terrible endeavours at seduction had no effect on him. In a way, he thinks—storing this thought secretly in a bolted safe—watching Atsumu’s sexual frustration rise to a high is flipping something indecent inside him. Something coy.

“This is a whole new level of torture, Omi-Omi,” says Atsumu. “Why do you have a vendetta against my libido?”

Sakusa fights back a smile. “Has it really been that bad?”

“Nah, this is exactly like a relaxin’ beach vacation,” snipes Atsumu. “ _Yes_ , it’s been that bad. We'll wait if you want, but I don't get it. I'm _fine.”_

Atsumu drops his stare to the floor, the Persian carpet at his feet sprawling crooked, angled unevenly to the grout. With hands propped archly on his hips, he kicks it morosely in place until it realigns.

“Really?” asks Sakusa.

“Really,” says Atsumu.

It usually takes two weeks for an average bruise to heal, online sources and personal experiences tell Sakusa. The one on Atsumu’s cheek had its time to turn blue and then brown, giving the blood its chance to reabsorb, and is now faded into the familiar colour of his skin. Only a week, but it seems like it shouldn’t hurt.

“All right,” says Sakusa, feeling all of his self-control dissolve. Atsumu doesn’t even wait for him to suggest, “Tonight,” before pumping his fist in the air.

.

But that enthusiasm, to Sakusa’s confusion, doesn’t last long.

 _Tonight,_ Sakusa had said, because he knew it would give them both ample time to prepare, what with the cleaning, laundry, douching, and more cleaning. But as the day wanes on, Sakusa can sense Atsumu’s eagerness dwindle with it, shrinking off into something tense. He gets quieter, clumsier—at one point almost clapping the wrong side of the capo on his guitar, a movement supposedly ingrained by rote—and seems unable to hold Sakusa’s gaze. And for some inexplicable reason, Atsumu had vehemently refused to let Sakusa help with cleaning his room and washing the sheets. _I’ll get it perfect,_ was all the explanation he gave.

So now Sakusa stands, hands folded across his chest, in the middle of Atsumu’s bedroom. It’s starless out tonight; the clouds are restless, rolling in for cover under the moon.

Atsumu stands five feet before him at the edge of the bed, hands frozen rigidly at his sides, dimly lit by the table lamp. He’s looking at Sakusa but not directly in his eyes, a plastic smile on his face.

“So,” says Sakusa.

“Um,” says Atsumu, clearing his throat.

A silence falls between them. If only crickets were around.

“This is awkward,” says Sakusa slowly. “You were so gung-ho about this before. What the hell happened?”

Atsumu rakes forcibly at the back of his head, mussing up his hair; then his hands come together in front of him, like he’s about to fiddle with his fingers. But possibly he concludes that it would be too naked an indication of how badly he wants to hide from the question, so in the end, he just tilts his head towards the afghan rug beneath him and directs his answer to it.

“I’m nervous,” he says.

Sakusa blinks. “You’re nervous.”

“I’m nervous,” Atsumu admits. “I—it’s your first time with a guy.”

 _What if you don’t like it_ hangs in the air, tacit. Sakusa feels something warm coil in the pit of his stomach.

“Okay,” he says, and takes the few steps to close the distance between them.

Atsumu freezes. Sakusa can almost _feel_ the whirring of his brains working overtime to process the situation, to calm his nerves.

“I cleaned the sheets,” Atsumu blurts out. “New linen, and all. All the pillow cases too, d’ya know how annoyin’ it is to change pillow cases? And the blankets. Doesn’t it smell good, Omi-kun, like—like detergent? And I put air freshener—”

“Stop,” says Sakusa, and Atsumu’s mouth snaps shut. “Get on the bed.”

He doesn’t quite mean for it to come out all demanding, but it _has_ been a long time. The tension bubbling up inside him makes the sentence come out more like an order than he wanted.

Atsumu makes a sound at the back of his throat and climbs onto the bed. It crinkles and dips around him as he sits, legs crossed. Sakusa goes to kneel above the soft space beside him. It _does_ smell like detergent, freshly washed.

“I showered also,” says Atsumu, looking like he knows that it’s the beginning of a ramble but is unable to stop himself. “And I cleaned myself with that body wash thing that you use. D’ya like dirty talkin’, by the way? We can dirty talk, if you wa—”

“Atsumu,” says Sakusa, “shut up.”

Atsumu bites down on his lower lip. Then: “It’s still a little strange,” he says, “hearin’ you call me that,” and appears to have decided that that will be the last to regurgitate from his mouth.

Sakusa swallows, feeling suddenly too hot in the confines of his clothes.

“Take off your shirt,” he demands.

Atsumu does, in one swift motion. Sakusa stares down at him, now covered only by the fabric of his shorts, the lines of his abdominals toned, traces of injury almost gone.

 _It_ has _been a long time._ Something inside Sakusa fractures open, like the breaking off the rim of a tidewater glacier. Hasn’t it been years, since he’d last been this physically intimate with someone? All the touches he always tries to avoid: staring straight at him now, unwavering. It’s still somewhat unfathomable to him, how people go about life breathing in the air with abandon; going on, bearing the imprints of things that touch you. A little shaky, every time you connect with something, someone, banking on the chance that it won’t hurt.

Sakusa reaches out and threads his fingers through Atsumu’s hair.

“I’ve always,” he says. “I’ve always liked touching your hair.”

Atsumu melts into the touch, his eyes nearly shuttering close. “You should thank my hair stylist, Yuuji-kun,” he murmurs. “He has fabulous hair too, by the way, ‘cause it’s dyed almost the same as mine.”

“You really have the Everest of self-confidence,” says Sakusa.

“How else should you live,” says Atsumu, turning his head over to press his lips against the palm of Sakusa’s hand.

It sends a current of heat down the length of Sakusa’s arm, spreads over his chest and shoots straight down his cock. He does his best to keep his breathing even.

“Such flexible wrists,” Atsumu hums in between kisses, the words slightly muffled. Some of his discomfort seems to have eased. “What do ya even do, with hands this bendy?”

“Lately,” says Sakusa, “I use them to touch myself, thinking of you.”

“—Fuck,” Atsumu strangles out.

Sakusa inches closer, hands on both sides of Atsumu, caging him in, and kisses him.

Atsumu opens up easily into the kiss, his mouth hot. When the flutters of their tongues meet, Sakusa pulls in to swallow the achingly needy sound that Atsumu makes, erratic and hungry and much too starved. Atsumu’s hand stutters up to grasp at his shirt then, like staving off drowning—a desperate, aimless clench. Sakusa moves closer in response, his thigh pressing up against the bulge at the front of Atsumu’s shorts, the arousal there evident. Atsumu lets out a ragged moan.

Sakusa pulls back slightly, stopping for breath. Atsumu’s eyes are glazed over, his cock hard against Sakusa’s thigh, which— _fuck_.

“Haven’t even touched you yet,” says Sakusa, voice rough, “and you’re already like this.”

“Well, whose fault is that?” says Atsumu. “I’ve been horny for a damn week.”

Sakusa leans over and presses his mouth to Atsumu’s forehead, the smell of shampoo sweet and faint. Distantly, he hears a sigh escape, the sound pleased and complacent. Another kiss; on his cheek. Another; his neck, his throat, the curve of his shoulder, the skin above his heart.

Atsumu’s body is _burning_. “Don’t tease,” he rasps.

Sakusa tries to hide his smile. He trails one hand along the curve of Atsumu’s thigh, his fingers brushing across the supple flesh, intentionally avoiding his cock. Atsumu twitches slightly to the touch.

“I said,” Atsumu begins.

“Keep your hands to your side,” says Sakusa, “or I’ll stop,” and dips his head to put his mouth to Atsumu’s chest, tongue flicking across his nipple.

Atsumu moans indistinctly and shudders, his hands fisted at the sheets. His legs automatically flinch closer together, trying to create friction in his groin, but Sakusa puts both hands on his thighs and pries them open, disallowing. Atsumu makes a frustrated sound.

“Omi, what the _hell_ ,” he says.

“What,” says Sakusa, “I can’t touch you?”

Atsumu lets out a noise, half a laugh and half a groan. “ _You_ ,” he says. “That’s unfair.”

Sakusa keeps at it.

With Atsumu—surprisingly—obediently clutching at the sheets, his breathing desperate, Sakusa continues. Settling comfortably between Atsumu’s spread legs, he presses the flat of his tongue at one nipple and rolls the other one between his fingers—teasing at both unrelentingly, alternating his mouth between the two until Atsumu starts to shake.

“Omi,” he whines, more air than sound. “Sh-shit, _ah_ , wait—”

Sakusa gives his nipple another lick and looks up, the heat flooding his face. And Atsumu is—

Atsumu is _wrecked_. His eyes are bright and unfocused, the lamplight reflecting in them as he tilts his head up to look at Sakusa. His cheeks are flushed and his lips parted, bitten raw from where he must've been trying to keep himself quiet. Sakusa catches sight of the bulge in Atsumu’s pants, hard and straining, and his whole body trembles hot. Sakusa feels all the blood shoot down to his own cock.

“Please,” Atsumu begs, open-mouthed. “Oh god, I— _please_.”

Atsumu is a hair-trigger away from the edge, his entire body thrumming with need.

It doesn’t take much at all. Sakusa just bites down on his neck, presses his palm onto Atsumu’s tenting front and gives it an indulgent stroke, and Atsumu is coming with a stifled cry, dropping his febrile head to Sakusa’s shoulder. “Omi,” he’s sighing, “ _Omi_ ,” like no one else is capable of doing this to him, and Sakusa tangles his fingers through Atsumu's hair. Holds him then, as Atsumu pants weakly into the curve of Sakusa's neck and becomes ruined in his orgasm, becomes drained.

When the last of his tremors settle, still, Sakusa says, “You’re sensitive,” although it comes out a little hoarse.

“Shit,” Atsumu pants. “I…shit.”

Sakusa’s almost amused. “Too much?”

“That’s so—it’s been a _week_.”

“Hm,” says Sakusa. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect this.”

“You sly monster,” says Atsumu, but unbearably fond.

Sakusa’s entire body is heated with desire, his last ounces of control slipping away from him. He pulls Atsumu into a kiss—fervent and heavy this time—slick with want. Atsumu moves into it, responding in a rush until he suddenly pulls back.

“How many times,” says Atsumu, still catching breath, “do ya wanna come tonight?”

Sakusa’s lips quirk. “Is that a challenge?”

“It’s an invitation,” says Atsumu. “You’re hard, Omi.”

“Well, obviously, Miya,” says Sakusa, somewhat teasing with the name. _Were you really that worried?_ “But your pants,” he reminds, pointing to Atsumu’s shorts where they are wet with come, a dark stain that’ll eventually stick and dry.

“I’ll take care of it later,” says Atsumu. “You’re hard.”

“What are you—”

But Atsumu’s already pushing him down—a nudge on his shoulder until Sakusa falls backwards, half of his weight rested on his elbows atop the sheets—and Atsumu climbs over in between his legs.

Before Sakusa can say anything, Atsumu does a fleeting, slow stroke up the length of Sakusa’s erection through his pants, brushing over the outline of his cock—and Sakusa is reminded that, well, _yes,_ he is unbelievably, achingly hard.

Atsumu pulls his pants off and leans down. Presses a kiss at one side of his cock, another at the other, another above, below. Licks his tongue along Sakusa’s length, slow and torturous, a hand gliding over his balls. _He’s deliberately not putting my dick in his mouth_ , Sakusa thinks, his brain whirling.

“Now who’s the one teasing?” says Sakusa breathlessly.

Atsumu grins, mischievous.

And then wraps his lips around the shaft, lowering his head down its length, his tongue a hot cradle against its underside. Oh god _,_ it’s _excruciating_. Everywhere under Sakusa’s skin burns with want, only want, everything in his consciousness narrowing down to the single touch.

Then Atsumu pulls back, just as slowly—dragging the wet heat of his mouth up in agonizing increments—and then moves down again. His hand curls around the base of Sakusa’s cock and tugs, dragging out a guttural groan from Sakusa.

 _He’s trying to get me to make noise,_ Sakusa thinks, his heartbeat erratic, _this guy._ But oh, holy shit. Atsumu draws his tongue over the underside of his cock at the same time as he hollows out his cheeks, and Sakusa’s brain goes a little blank.

“Shit,” says Sakusa.

Atsumu lifts his eyes to take a look at Sakusa’s face and—with as much grace as someone with a cock in his mouth can summon—smirks. And continues.

Atsumu gives head like he loves it, like he can’t get enough of it—eyes going hazy, head moving in a constant, hungry rhythm. _Oh god._ Tentatively at first—and then, when it’s clear that it’s welcome—Sakusa fucks Atsumu’s throat. Grabs a mass of Atsumu’s hair and bucks into him. And Atsumu just lets himself be moved, pliant in Sakusa’s grip, his moans muffled, vibrating hot around Sakusa’s length, the head of Sakusa’s cock knocking against the back of his throat.

“Look, Atsumu,” Sakusa manages out, “I don’t think I’m gonna—”

He lasts what he considers an appropriate amount of time; as long as anyone could feasibly be expected to under the circumstances, anyway. Sakusa warns Atsumu when he nears it—tugging his hair, saying, _I’m close_ —but Atsumu is having none of it. When Sakusa comes with a strangled groan, his whole body wracked with tremors, Atsumu stills; and then, after a beat, swallows.

“Fuck,” says Sakusa.

Atsumu pulls off of him, his mouth closing around the tip of Sakusa’s cock as he removes himself. He licks his lips and swallows again, the remaining taste of Sakusa’s come going down his throat.

Sakusa pants, catching his breath as Atsumu gets up in a sitting position and looks back at him. “Wanna kiss?” asks Atsumu.

“Ah,” says Sakusa, squirming, “no.”

Atsumu bursts out laughing. “Your face!” he says, pointing at Sakusa in a way that clearly indicates that he already knew the answer, but only asked to rile up a reaction.

“Well, ex _cuse_ me,” says Sakusa.

“You got so pale, Omi-kun,” Atsumu grins. “That was kinda cute.”

Sakusa rolls his eyes. “Give me a break, won’t you?”

“That would be hilarious,” says Atsumu, “if I went through all that cleanin’ and washin’, and then just kiss you with come in my mouth.”

“Peak comedy,” says Sakusa dryly.

“Well,” says Atsumu, climbing up over the edge of the bed and standing upright on the floor. “I’ll go wash up real quick,” and disappears into the bathroom.

Sakusa inches towards the headboard and slumps his back against it, deciding to pull off his shirt from the sheer heat. From a kleenex holder on the bedside table, he yanks a tissue out and wipes along his cock, still lightheaded.

And takes in the room.

In the end, Atsumu understands. There is nothing here that’s riling up his mysophobia. Everything is polished, cleaned to the tee. A perfect sanitization from the Norwegian dresser to the mirror glass. The entire air of it soothes Sakusa—the status, unusual but quo. There is nothing here that disgusts him. It feels…

A memory prickles in the back of his mind. Probes against his head. A fractious disagreement they had, in this same room, at the same spot, _curtains billowing like a waterfall made of light,_ the band-aids, the delible marks—

“Ya better not tell me that we’re stoppin’ after this, Omi-kun.”

Sakusa looks up.

Atsumu makes his way from the bathroom towards Sakusa, the edges of his hair wet with water that must have been splashed on his face, his shorts gone. He climbs onto the bed and crawls over to where Sakusa is, stark naked.

Something unravels within Sakusa, like the unfurling of a leaf, as he stares back into Atsumu’s eyes. _I want you_ , he thinks, a strange sort of tenderness in his veins. _I want you. This corner of you is mine._

“Come here,” he says, patting his own thigh.

Atsumu compliantly nudges close and settles himself into Sakusa’s lap. Straddling him with both knees on his sides, his weight and warmth comforting. _He must have just quickly rinsed himself,_ Sakusa realizes, smelling the sweet trace of body wash, and places his hands on the swells of Atsumu’s hips.

“Hey,” says Sakusa. “The—thing you did.”

“Hm?”

“Thanks,” says Sakusa, “for trying, with the candles. It was horrifying. I appreciate it.”

“It was a low point,” admits Atsumu.

Sakusa wraps both arms around Atsumu’s waist and pulls him close, nuzzling his nose to the skin on Atsumu’s chest. There’s a heartbeat there, steady. _Alive._

“What’s up?” asks Atsumu, wonderingly. “What got you in this mood?”

“What mood?” 

“This pensive mood,” says Atsumu. “Lost in thoughts. Head in the clouds, kinda thing.”

Sakusa releases a slow, quiet breath of dread he’d been holding, and buries his face onto Atsumu’s skin.

“Do you remember,” he murmurs, “that time, when you thought I was on the flight to Europe? The night you slept with that guy who stormed out?”

“Is this your version of dirty talkin’?” says Atsumu, but Sakusa can hear the light _I’m teasing; go on._

Sakusa remembers it all, too vividly for his comfort. Remembers the way he steps into the house with the spare key and walks up the stairs, only to hear the sound of Atsumu’s voice, muted through the walls but unmistakable all the same. Remembers his eyes widening, hands clenching into fists until his nails bite crescent moons into his palms. There was a hot-and-cold weight settling atop Sakusa’s chest then, the jealousy crushing him silent, an anvil. Like anchors were lashed to his ankles, he wanted nothing more than to barge in and interrupt.

But despite all of it, he remembers that in the morning next, even amidst all that sadness, that blinding envy, that horrible sense of possessiveness, there had only been one thing he could really think of, seeing Atsumu on the bed with all those marks:

_I want to take care of you._

“It was unbearable,” Sakusa mutters into Atsumu’s chest. “I almost couldn’t stand it.”

There’s a long bout of silence, the moment stretching between them; a silken pull.

Sakusa hugs him tighter. The smell of Atsumu, the warmth of him, the solid feel of his form—in the end, Sakusa has never been able to manage anything close to objectivity, when it comes to him. _In the morning, you’ll go on living with all of yourself. All yours,_ he thinks. _But this corner of you is mine._

“That’s why you avoided me,” says Atsumu, a little quiet. “Sorry you went through that, Omi-kun.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Atsumu shifts in his hold, brings his hand up to pat Sakusa lightly on the back of his head. “I didn’t know you liked me that much, then.”

“I think,” says Sakusa. “I think ever since the hill, I’ve always been a little bit in love with you.”

Atsumu stills in his arms.

 _There,_ Sakusa thinks, _I said it,_ and at no point wants to retract.

Then Atsumu moves. Leans over to his left—Sakusa’s right, pulling Sakusa along with him—and quickly rummages through the bedside table for something. Sakusa lifts his head, curious, his arms slackening slightly, until Atsumu returns with a bottle of lube in his hand.

“Here,” says Atsumu. “Finger me.”

Sakusa stares. “This is your response to someone confessing to you?”

Atsumu chooses that moment to crash their lips together, nothing gentle about it, nothing but hunger and desperation. He tastes fresh, slightly of mint—Sakusa chases the heat of it into his mouth, licking across his lips, the ridges behind his teeth, his tongue.

He hears the _click_ of the bottle being opened, and then Atsumu is holding him by the wrist, squeezing the contents of the lube onto his hand.

“Jeez,” says Sakusa, “that’s cold.”

“It’ll be warm inside me,” Atsumu drawls.

“Ha,” says Sakusa. Atsumu moves, resting his weight against his knees, giving Sakusa better access.

“C’mon, Omi,” he urges impatiently, his eyes clouded. Fuck, he’s so lovely like this, needy and laid bare. Sakusa grazes a finger along Atsumu’s ass, fleeting, earning a shiver in response. Stopping only when he reaches the entrance, and then pushes in.

 _He’d prepared_ , Sakusa immediately realizes. It doesn’t take him much time at all to slide in two fingers next, inching them into the feverish clutch of Atsumu’s insides.

Atsumu reacts with a barely contained whimper. He pushes back down on it, breathing heavily, straddling Sakusa’s lap and thrusting himself onto Sakusa’s hand. This sight of him naked—cheeks flushed, eyes hooded, hair damp—is skyrocketing from the indecent to the straight up obscene.

“God, Atsumu,” Sakusa grits out, sliding in a third finger. “Look at you.”

Atsumu manages a smile. “Enjoyin’?”

Sakusa twists his fingers as answer, drawing out a stuttered breath. “You’re so responsive,” says Sakusa, his own cock nudging against Atsumu’s thigh.

Atsumu bites back a moan. Hand reaching restlessly towards the table, he yanks back a condom. “It’s fine, I prepared,” he groans—like there isn’t any time left to stall—then bites onto the packet and jerks his head away, the plastic of it ripping free. There’s something so insanely irresistible about that, Sakusa thinks, dizzy, his entire body searing with anticipation.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Omi,” Atsumu practically _whines_ , his lips perilously near Sakusa’s ear. He slides the condom onto him, rolling it sleek between his fingers. “I want you inside me.”

 _Well,_ Sakusa thinks, _god help me._

Atsumu splays his hands out over Sakusa’s ribs and positions himself, before he’s lowering his body and taking Sakusa in, swallowing him down, pliant and pulsing tight all around him—and Sakusa has to look away to distract himself, trying to keep from coming too soon. Atsumu lets out a little gasp of his own, shaky and breathless, and sinks completely down onto him, no pause, a solid push from tip to hilt.

It’s— _fuck_ —it’s indescribable. Sakusa dimly registers that he must be groaning something, _oh my god,_ not even fully aware of himself until his hips stutter and Atsumu trembles, his face flooded with need.

“You all right?” Sakusa gets out. “Don’t push yourself.”

“I just—need a moment,” says Atsumu, hands quivering on Sakusa’s stomach. “God, you’re so—”

He cuts himself off when he moves up, agonizingly slow, as if needing time to get used to it, until he reaches the tip of Sakusa’s cock and then he’s sinking back down again.

Sakusa’s brain almost shuts off from the fuzzy rush, his brain plummeting down to his groin. It continues like that—Sakusa tilting his hips to meet Atsumu screwing back onto him, their rhythms synced, bodies _scorched_ and sleek with sweat—until Sakusa angles slightly, pushes against Atsumu’s body a different way, and Atsumu jolts. Stutters out a helpless moan, the sound so nakedly obscene that it richochets through Sakusa like a bullet.

“Fuck— _ah_ ,” Atsumu gasps, staring into Sakusa’s eyes, unfocused, “ _Kiyoomi._ ”

Sakusa’s mind goes haywire.

He grips both sides of Atsumu’s waist and flips them over, Atsumu flopping onto his back on the sheets with a gasp, the pillow dipping low around his hair. His ass is still clenching around Sakusa as Sakusa hooks one of his legs over his shoulder.

“Omi—?”

Sakusa slams into him. Atsumu’s voice breaks as he arches up off the bed, eyes snapping wide open. He squeezes so tight around Sakusa that Sakusa lets out a sound, low and feral in his throat.

“Oh _f-fuck_ ,” Atsumu chokes out. “ _Ungh_ —”

Sakusa pins Atsumu to the bed by his wrists then, almost bending him in half when he drives into him. There isn’t much Sakusa can think about—the sweat on the skin between them, the heat of it all, the tightness, all of it clouding him. _It feels too good_. Sakusa hits Atsumu’s prostate with every thrust, savouring every moan, every tremor.

And when Atsumu seems to be on the brink of it, his leaking cock hard against his abdomen, Sakusa leans down and licks across his ear. Atsumu shivers, hands fisted desperately at the pillow, his eyelids fluttering unsteadily.

“ _Omi_ ,” he sobs. “ _Omi_.”

Sakusa bites down on his neck, sucking on the skin right below his ear. “Atsumu,” he groans, something raw and low. “Come for me.”

Atsumu lets out a sound—too loud to be a whimper, too shattered to be a moan—and comes with a shudder, his entire body trembling underneath. Sakusa manages a few more thrusts before he comes himself, Atsumu’s name in his mouth, Atsumu’s mouth on his skin, the wave of orgasm crashing through him, leaving a momentary blankness in its wake.

And when the edges of his vision refocus, they’re both heaving. Panting through the aftershocks.

Sakusa slowly pulls out. Atsumu—oversensitized off his orgasm—makes a broken little noise, too spent to do anything but shudder at the sensation.

“That,” Sakusa manages, in between breaths. “That was...”

“Shit,” says Atsumu. “Holy _shit_ , Omi-kun.”

Sakusa blinks blearily, willing his heart to calm.

“So,” he says, barely registering that his mouth is pulled up in a smile, “how does your invitation stand now?”

.

Sakusa pours water into the cup; hears the sloshing of it fill the otherwise quiet bedroom.

Outside, it snows.

Atsumu lies on the bed, snuggled up under the blanket drawn up to his chin. The open packets of condom lie strewn across the table, some discarded in the bin, their contents emptied. From somewhere behind the buildings outside, a passing car blows its horn.

 _I can’t believe,_ Atsumu had said, some time after they had showered and changed the sheets, _that I was ever nervous about this._

 _Does it really not hurt anywhere?_ Sakusa asked.

Atsumu only gazed back in response, his smile gentle beneath his palm. _I have a show next week,_ he said instead. _I wanna make it public that we’re datin’, before it. You okay with that?_

 _Yeah,_ said Sakusa. _Of course._

Atsumu looked surprised. _You’re not worried?_

 _It’ll be fine,_ said Sakusa.

Atsumu fidgeted then, his cheeks turning slightly pink. _Damn,_ he mumbled, _I didn’t know ya had that much faith in us, Omi._

Sakusa drinks down the glass of water, now, and glances at the clock. Four a.m. In just a few hours, Tokyo will rise.

He lifts his eyes and watches the world through the window, entranced by how the falling of snow can make this city into such a dream. Directionless and soft, the flakes fall like dandelion puffs until it blankets the ground in white, too perfect for the later footprints. At a corner in the sky, the moon shines, not quite a circle, not quite anything at all, with one edge too straight as it pulls at the ocean and pulls at the earth. How easy things must be, to live as surely as it does; certain of its welcome, the dreamers in its wake—never once looking out over the tides to second-guess itself.

Sakusa climbs back into bed.

Atsumu stirs, shifts. Murmurs incoherently and makes room, even in his unconsciousness, for Sakusa to fit into the space around him.

Sakusa pulls the blanket over them and hugs him close. _You,_ he thinks, _what do I do with you,_ burying his nose in Atsumu’s hair, the feel of his skin soft and warm. A gentling that touches Sakusa and turns him fragile. God, how full he feels, drowsy on comfort. 

“I love you,” he whispers.

Atsumu’s already asleep.

In the lilt of Sakusa's ears, the waking of the city fades into a hum. Rises to a single, melodical sound of a piano guiding an orchestra, reining an auditorium, breath held for what’s to come.

 _You didn’t hear me_ , Sakusa thinks distantly, the heaviness of sleep settling around him, _but that’s all right_. We have time. Plenty of space before us over the horizon, enough to cross us an entire life and we’re not yet halfway there.

The sinews of our bodies, your kindness and your song—it will all be here come morning. Today, tomorrow, the day after that. Our fortune lies in trusting that this world will remain with us, even when we close our eyes.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Kiyoomi's last POV chapter and I'm sad... I feel like I'm saying goodbye to him, even though it's not exactly goodbye yet!
> 
> I'll be splitting the next chapter into 2 shorter ones, but I'll post both chapters 9 and 10 at the same time. So my next update will be the final one. 
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with me until now!!! One last hurrah!


	9. Atsumu

Atsumu opens his eyes.

_ BREAKING NEWS: MIYA ATSUMU’S NEW LOVER CONFIRMED _

_We knew there was something fishy going on there between our star Miya Atsumu and his bodyguard-turned-boyfriend Sakusa Kiyoomi!_

_The two were recently spotted roaming through the Christmas market at Hibiya Park. From the photos [shown below], our sources claim that Miya and Sakusa looked to be having a great time together, as they “couldn’t stop smiling” at each other._

_When asked during a casual interview this morning about the photos and whether or not the two are in a relationship after all, Miya had replied, “Yes, we are.”_

_Our sources have captured photos [shown below] of the two of them today – they really are too adorable! Neither has confirmed how long they have been dating for, or how serious it is, but we are still asking and Miya’s Twitter account has blown up since the release of this exciting news. Some have raised eyebrows over the ethics and professionalism of this relationship, but honestly, we are just very happy to hear that our beloved long-time playboy has found someone._

_Stay tuned to find out more, and hit subscribe!_

Here’s what happens:

Atsumu is hounded by a flock of paparazzi and reporters, and says, “Yes, we are. But we’d like some privacy, so please, if ya can just stay the fuck outta this.”

But in the seven days to come, the world caves in. Shouts for attention, incessant clicks of cameras, flashes and blurs of people darkened through their sunglasses. Adoring and fetishizing stares that make the air too thick to breathe. Sakusa would flinch sometimes, when he thinks that Atsumu can’t see him, and it takes all the inward curls of Atsumu’s patience for him to undo his fist.

Atsumu watches Sakusa react, or try not to, and feels it all close in around him. People relentlessly search up Sakusa’s history, chase after crumbs of every picture, every movement, itching for any indication of a man human enough to publicize. These sons of bitches. Civil as a fucking hammer to the skull. Atsumu watches their hands grab at them—pinpricks needling into Sakusa’s life—and wonders if this is what it’s like to drown. To be crushed silent, their lives receding around him like a mirage of the shallows. 

“I have to admit,” says Sakusa, one day in the car, “these paparazzi can be pretty shit.”

In the words of the sages of old: well, what did they expect.

_TSUM TSUM GOOD LUCK ON UR SHOW TONIGHT!!!!! Hinata came over so the 3 of us are watching u thru TV and we will be cheering for u‼! Dont forget to drink water and do those vocal warm ups and get lots of sleep!!!!!!! And remember—_

“You’re jumpin’,” says Kita.

Atsumu tears his eyes away from Bokuto’s message on his phone and looks at him, scowling.

“I don’t get why we had to come here so early and then wait two entire hours for me to get on stage,” he grumbles. “I’m gettin’ impatient from this.”

“Stop tappin’ your feet,” says Kita. “This is just to make sure that everything is accordin’ to plan, Atsumu. You know that.”

Atsumu crosses his arms and glares stubbornly at the mirror.

It smells of fresh leather. The dressing room they’re in is dimly lit, with only the cumbrous light around the line of mirrors illuminating their forms. Kita is sitting at one of the folding chairs beside him, fingers wrapped around the phone in his hands, leaning patiently against the backrest. Sakusa stands by the door, watching them.

“We’ve been in here for _ages_ , Kita-san,” says Atsumu. “Can’t we start the show early? I swear, any longer and we’ll come out to see that the sixth ice age has come.”

Sakusa sends him a withering look. “You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m bein’ _eager_ ,” Atsumu corrects. “And—also, d’ya think I look good enough in this outfit? I though that it’s too _meh._ Oh, but what if I dress like my guitarist? Isn’t Eita-kun so cool? D’ya think I can pull off his style?”

“Probably not,” says Kita. “Show starts in ten minutes, by the way.”

Atsumu inhales, sharp.

There’s a flurry of noises through the closed door. A bustling sign of the near-showtime panic of the backstage crew, their chaos a thrill in Atsumu’s ears. Nerves are trying to take over his body now—both from excitement and from dread—and Atsumu forces it all down by eyeing himself in the mirror, leering at a corner of his sleeve that’s slightly wrinkled, no matter how many attempts he’s made at straightening it out, at a strand of his hair that’s out of place, shit, this is annoying, it’s not—

“You look good,” says Sakusa. “You should be concerned with other things, like possibly tripping and slipping in front of everyone onstage. That’d be much more embarrassing.”

Atsumu gives him a look. “That won’t happen.”

“Famous last words.”

Atsumu frowns at him, without rancour.

 _It’s been seven days._ It’s been seven days since word broke out, and things haven’t gotten easier. Even the trip they made tonight to get to this auditorium was littered with eyes, keen as hawks, charting their paths with the artisan-grade subtlety of a fucking shark. Atsumu wanted to punch them—knock the cat-got-the-cream grins off their damn faces—but all that would do is fuel it. Water through a sieve.

 _But what can I do, in the end,_ he thinks. Because through the walls and doors and the cracks in between, he hears the audience outside. They aren’t some polite crowd from a rich end of town. They’re loud, voices brash, the strident timber of their noises humming in the thousands. Hell, it prickles at his skin; brings his heart to a pounding clockwork. _You’re just as hungry as I am_.

“Five minutes,” says Kita. “Let’s go.”

The three of them move. Make their way through the doors to the organized chaos of the backstage area. Noise is noise from within, but the hubbub reverberating within the blackened walls—people floundering around in the near darkness, shouting at each other, grasping for clarity, the sound operators, electric preps, stage managers—is really something entirely else. From the corner of his eyes, Atsumu sees Sakusa’s brows scrunched together in obvious disdain, shoulders hunched, his mouth doubtlessly curling up in disgust underneath the mask. _You find this revolting,_ Atsumu thinks, _but this chaos is home to me._

Six feet in front of him, the instrumentalists are strapping on their guitars, their bass, percussions in hand. Pulling taut their fingers to prepare for the show. One of the band members turns toward him and smiles—jutting up his thumb for the a-ok: _We’re good to go—_ and begins to step out onto the stage, into the noise.

“Oh,” says Sakusa. “I know him. He’s Wakatoshi-kun’s friend.”

“My guitarist,” says Atsumu. “Small world.”

An uproar booms over the crowd as they watch the band shuffle out, rowdy and eager, much too keen. _Just a moment,_ he thinks. _Just a moment, and I’ll be out there._

“You ready?” asks Kita.

Atsumu nods, avidly, wordlessly.

“All right,” says Kita, his smile fond. “You got this. I’ll be here to hold down the fort.”

Atsumu glances over at Sakusa; meets his gaze. And for a brief, treacherous second, he considers leaving all of this behind.

His music, his stage—he considers turning coat, all of it something he can discard and abandon by the wayside, lost in the wake of his own dire, his own fears. _Maybe this is where I can draw the line for us,_ he spirals, _put a demarcation two inches above your comfort_ , _get those goddamn hands off of ya, put a fuckin’ end to this,_ because god— _This ain’t a stable career, ‘Tsumu._ It’s clunky and horrid, the empty music sheet a gravestone, and the nightmare of moving forward, Omi—the terror of looking back, only to find that what we have were never strongholds that can last forever, because—

 _And remember,_ said Bokuto, _task focus._

Atsumu breathes in.

“Go,” says Sakusa.

Atsumu takes in the coolness of the darkness—the sharp taste of metal and wood, the delicate, illicit smell of the night air—and walks.

The trek from where he is to the stage floor is like rising out of sleep, drowning in reverse. _Oh,_ Atsumu thinks, drinking in the sight of the full stadium, packed in its stands, filled to the thousands. A cacophony of applause thunders through him—the cheering, whooping, hollering, palpable excitement buzzing through the charged air. And god, the stage lights feel warm against his skin.

Are you watching me?

What happens next seems to happen in a trance. Atsumu barely registers what he’s saying. _How’s everyone doin’ tonight,_ maybe, or, _Thanks for comin’,_ or, _Let’s get this show on the road_ —or something amalgamated from all of that. The stadium is bursting to life, the vast space in front of him an ocean, cheers crashing in like the highest tidal waves. He twines his hand around the microphone, pulls it up to his chin. _Turn my heart into song_ , he thinks. _Carry me home._

Atsumu opens his mouth, and sings.

_Want out?_ he itches to ask, one morning when the exhaustion hauls up his fears.

They’re sitting on the bed with both their clothes draped over an armchair. Mornings are the most peaceful times, Atsumu thinks, the sunlight seeping into their room like relief. From somewhere out beyond the window, a warbler sings to match the dew.

Atsumu rests his cheeks on the guitar he’s holding and listens to it, his fingers settling over the strings, no pressure. With the warmth of the sun rays tender against his skin, he swears he can fall back into sleep like this, the stillness and serenity around them like a dream.

“Omi-kun,” he says.

Sakusa glances up from the book in his hand, eyes calm over his reading glasses. He leans further back onto the pillow perched up against the headboard, all of him naked, half-covered by the blanket.

“Hm?”

Atsumu absentmindedly toys with the strings. “My show’s tomorrow night.”

“I know,” says Sakusa. “I don’t think that’s changed from the original plan. What, are you nervous?”

“Not nervous,” Atsumu scoffs, but wonders if a paralleled emotion is showing on his face. “I’ll give ‘em my best. Cheers or jeers, they’ll gimme one or the other.”

A corner of Sakusa’s mouth quirks. “That’s an attitude.”

“What’re you doin’?”

Sakusa blinks at him. Looks down at the book in his hand, and then back up.

“Take a wild guess,” he says.

Atsumu drops his gaze and fixes it resolutely to the creases of the bedsheets, at the protrusions and shadows that lie there. His stomach churns.

 _It’s only been a week,_ he thinks, _and things have already been suffocating enough._ All that public attention. All those assholes with their starving maws, harpoons ready in hand to tear down any walls to get at them. _You with your suffocation, me with my anger and my guilt—_ what if it’s too much? What if, somewhere down the road ahead of us, when we’ve both sunken our feet too deep in the mud, too jagged by the rubble, you turn to me and say, _I knew this was never going to work._

 _God,_ he thinks, bile rising, _why am I so afraid,_ because this isn’t quite the horror of standing over your own grave. It’s tasting the metal of a bullet, after you’ve gone and put the elephant gun in your mouth.

“Atsumu,” says Sakusa.

Atsumu looks up and feels, suddenly, like he has done something terrible. Horrendous, like killing an innocent man, or loving the wrong person.

“I’m just,” he mutters, “still worried ‘bout us, Omi.”

Sakusa regards him for a moment. Then closes his book with a soft _thump_ and shuffles over, the dip of the mattress inching Atsumu a little closer to him.

“That’s a valid worry,” he murmurs, pressing his lips gently to Atsumu’s forehead, his thumb brushing over the hard line on Atsumu’s cheek. Atsumu closes his eyes, and lets him.

“I love you,” Atsumu says.

Sakusa stops moving.

 _I love you,_ Atsumu wants to say. _Don’t leave me._

But isn’t the half of it selfish? _God help me,_ he thinks. _My heart could break._ What a terrifying thing, to let someone know you too well, every bare inch of you an open canvas. To yearn for someone in return with every fiber of your being, to ache for them in the bone-depth of your core, even as they’re there in front of you. Even as they’re within reach, staring back at you with one hand on the airlock.

But when Atsumu tilts his chin up to look, Sakusa is smiling, warm as brine. The corners of his eyes crinkle as he takes Atsumu’s hand in his, fingers brushing over the rough ridges of Atsumu’s knuckles, tracing over the hollows in between. Atsumu melts into the touch and lets himself come apart at the seams, lost in the gaze of someone so ready for him. Surely this gentleness is a testament to something. Some form of want, raw and pure, naked and daring in a sea of doubt. _I love you,_ he whispers. _Listen to me_. _I love you. I don’t know if I can ever stop. I don’t know how I ever will. I love you._

Are you listening? Can you hear me?

When he finishes, the stands _erupt._

The auditorium bursts with sound before him. The crowd thunders, reaching their outstretched hands to the covered sky, _to him_ , launching into an elation so large, so monumental that Atsumu feels it pour into the river of his skin. The whistles, the hollers, the cheers. Puncturing the air like everything has been set on fire—like oceans roaring, mountains shifting—and he’s lightheaded, blazed with glory, dazed with love. _Thank you, Tokyo_ , he hears himself say. _Thank you._ The applause fills him still as he bows, as he makes his way backstage, running and running and running back to someone, the strike of his feet on the ground like a war drum, the fervour of love burning him alive.

“This is why I can’t quit,” he blurts out.

Sakusa stands before him, his eyes clear as sunlight. All of Atsumu’s hairs stand on end.

“This is why I can’t quit, Omi,” he says, breathlessly. “You hear a crowd like that, and it’s like—all of this is _real_. If they can relate to any of that, if they resonated with any of my words, or my song—any at all—then it means that all of us are less alone. God, nights like these, it makes you feel like it’s okay to believe in your dreams.”

Sakusa smiles. There’s a rumble beneath their feet still, continental echoes shaking the ground.

“I know,” he says.

Atsumu stares at him.

“I know,” Sakusa repeats, looking out to the lights. “I can still hear them. They love you.”

Atsumu watches as Sakusa turns his head towards the crowd, the stage lights flashing, dancing across his face.

 _He’s all right here,_ Atsumu thinks. _Every bit of him._ The fact that Sakusa hasn’t flinched away, hasn’t called it quits—surely this means that they aren’t just waiting for a fall, aren’t just waiting to land on a pileup of their own wounds. Surely this means that there is something in the rubble strong enough to hold them.

“Do you,” says Atsumu. “Do you think we’ll be okay?”

Sakusa turns to him, and reaches out a hand.

“God,” he whispers, “I hope so.”

.


	10. Epilogue

Listen, they got married.

Well. If you want to hear parts of their story from where it’s left off—see flashes of their memories that build up over time, pennies under fountain water—we can do that. But it all amounts to the same thing, in the end. River run.

Eventually the professional-relationship boundaries become blurry, and Sakusa finds a different, staggeringly high-paid job somewhere halfway around the city, demanding and satisfying all the same. He finds joy in attentive duties, pride in finished tasks—the absolute best at it too. And Atsumu continues on. The wind he chases, the thrill of the stage lights, the sounds he hears even in the folds of his dreams—Atsumu thrives on them, a king in his time.

Through all the nightfalls and sunrises across the horizon, through all the years that trickle down before them, they come back to each other, again and again.

The seasons turn on a dime.

When snow melts for spring, for grass, they sit and watch the world turn into colour. Watch the soft gleam of flowers open at morning, the light of the sun glowing in through the foliage of their garden. One of the blossoms on a nearby branch unfurls, petals outspreading like a pinafore. _Someday,_ says Sakusa, hand rested on the small of Atsumu’s back, _we should go somewhere._ Atsumu glances up at him, nearly champagne-giddy with affection. _If a hill overlooking Tokyo is considered your sight to see, we should go somewhere._

Europe is a maze of beauty, they think, wandering through the streets and pavements of old. Venice, Munich, Lille. Everywhere, people are speaking something in a language neither of them know.

 _Didn’t find that guy fishing for marlins,_ Sakusa tells Komori, one day through the phone, _but we did have fun._

They fuck each other until neither can see straight. After noons of sights, after evenings of wine, they stumble back to their hotel and magnetize, spilling onto every surface they can manage. Sakusa would lick Atsumu open, and Atsumu would gasp hues of profanity until he moans, _Kiyoomi,_ like it’s the best of all invectives. And Atsumu would bring Sakusa to ruin in turn, holds him in his arms, chest to his back, until the last of their shudders fade.

And sometimes in the night, one of them would whisper something, knowing the other is asleep.

Thunderstorm. The smell of rain. _Storm’s coming,_ Sakusa warned just hours before, staring at the gunmetal sky with Atsumu’s fingerprints on the windowpane. They watch the world unmake around the shape of their own home, the raging deluge of nature rolling across the space beyond their window. When the room suddenly brightens with the white-hot glare of lightning, they’re there: Atsumu’s hair tangled in a havoc around Sakusa’s fingers, his head on Sakusa’s lap.

Hundreds of miles away from them, the low crackle of thunder belts above the earth, and for a moment, everything stops. Even the wind holds its breath.

 _Isn’t it strange,_ says Sakusa, _getting older?_

 _Not really,_ says Atsumu. _Kiss me._

Leaves. Lights. The scent of summer. On the hill overlooking Tokyo, the layers of grass spill green over the undergrowth. The wind rustles through them as they stand, a whisper apart, the sound of trees coming alive before them.

Sakusa watches the clouds turn into wisps above him, stretching thin across the sky, all blue. The city is steeped in the late-afternoon daze of summer, the comforting hum of its life like a warm cloak over him. Somewhere through the window of a nearby building, a piano is being played, its keys chanting clarity, chanting grace.

 _Let’s get married,_ Sakusa blurts out.

There is a beat of silence. Then Atsumu says, _Argh,_ and ruffles his hair, _fuck, Omi-kun. I can’t believe ya beat me to it._

Sakusa doesn’t seem to register it for a moment. When he does, his eyes widening a fraction, body turning around in a slow movement of disbelief, Atsumu is already on one knee. A little box is nestled in his hand, opened for its ring inside.

Atsumu grins.

 _Sakusa Kiyoomi_ , he begins, but doesn’t get to finish the sentence because Sakusa’s already pulling him into a hug, and gosh, Sakusa’s saying—well, what do you think he’s saying.

Their wedding is a bit of a mess, but it’s also a bit of a wonderful thing. River run.

Atsumu speeds down the highway. Sakusa crosses his legs on the passenger seat and rests his elbow against the open window, a lick of wind blowing through the cloud of his hair. It tastes like grass, smells like light. They drive and drive and drive, down the long and arrow-straight road, an old song on the radio as faded as dreams are. They can watch the world roll past like this, the grassland through the rearview mirror disappearing behind them. Only the sun hangs still. Because you can’t live as though your best years are behind you, they think; can’t look back until we’re pillars of salt. That’s not what memories are for.

And when they stop, somewhere beyond the endless road, at a little house they have a long call away from the city, Atsumu pulls out a round thing from his room and heads into the garden. Sakusa follows suit, tearing off his mask along the way.

 _Now?_ he asks. _We just arrived._

 _I wanna play, Omi,_ says Atsumu, throwing the yellow and blue ball up in the air. Waits for it to land back on his palm, its weight just barely a gravity pull. The touch of it like a lionsong. _I recently remembered somethin’ that I read when I was younger_ , _and it makes me really wanna play._

 _So what,_ says Sakusa. _You hit the ball to me, and I get it up in the air?_

 _Yeah,_ says Atsumu, beaming, _I bet you’ll love it,_ and takes four steps back.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miss Haikyuu and I love Haikyuu! Please don't hesitate to scream at me about sakuatsu and Furudate's masterpiece!
> 
> I just want to thank [Em](https://twitter.com/soeunaa99), for beta-ing the last two chapters of this fic. Please give her lots and lots and lots of love!!! She's also the author of a wonderful and super hot [bodyguard Omi fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26789647/chapters/65352313) hehe!!!
> 
> I also just want to give a huge thank you to [Dazzle](https://twitter.com/DazzleTwig) and [Alice](https://twitter.com/YuliceChan), for their absolutely gorgeous fanarts! Please check both of them out, they are drop-dead amazing!!!! 
> 
> I want to explain the fic title inspiration, as well as the story and writing influences, but it's too cluttered here in the A/N, so I posted a tweet of it and here is [a link to the thread](https://twitter.com/cielelyse2/status/1330747737185390592). Thank you so so so much everyone for reading!!!! Please take care!!!


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